LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 



Wayside {Springs 



FROM THE 



FOUNTAIN OF LIFE 



BY 



THEODORE L. CUYL.ER, D.D., 

TASTOR OF LAFAYETTE AVENUE CHURCH, BROOKLYN. 









AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

150 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK. 






COPYRIGHT, 1883, 
BY AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 












THE SONG AT THE WELL 5 

CHRIST THE FOUNTAIN 12 

THE GREAT PROMISE 19 

PATCHING THE OLD GARMENT 26 

A GOOD LIFE— HOW TO BEGIN IT 33 

BE THOROUGH 39 

CHRIST'S JEWELS 47 

CITIZENS OF HEAVEN 52 

GIVE CHRIST THE BEST 5S 

RIGHT AND WRONG PRAYING 63 

THE NIGHT OF FAILURE— THE MORNING OF FAITH 70 

CHRISTIANS FOR THE WORLD— NOT OF IT . . 75 

A SERMON ALL THE WEEK 83 



4 CONTENTS. 

THE LILY-WORK ON THE PILLARS ... 87 

STANDING THE STRAIN 94 

TURNING WINTER INTO SPRING . 101 

ONE BY ONE 107 

GLEANING FOR CHRIST ....... 114 

SEEKING AFTER HOLINESS . . . . , .119 

GLIMPSES OF HEAVEN , . . . . . .123 

THE WRECK OF THE GOLD-SHIPS . . . .128 

THE HONEY OF THE WORD . . . . . .135 

CAN WE FEEL SURE? . . . . . . . .141 

ASLEEP IN JESUS 149 

THE SEVEN " BLESSEDS " 156 



Wayside Springs. 



THE SONG AT THE WELL. 

ThERE was once a sermon at a well. The 
teacher was Jesus of Nazareth, and the discourse 
was delivered to one poor sinful woman as the 
entire audience. The Son of God felt (what we 
ministers too often forget on stormy Sundays) 
that a single immortal soul is a great audience. 

Other wells in the Bible are historic besides 
the well of Sychar. One, at Bethlehem, is asso- 
ciated with a princely act of chivalry; another, 
at Nahor, with the beginning of a singular court- 
ship. We venture to say that there is one well 
beside which most of our readers never halted 
and out of which they have never drawn either 
a song or a sermon. 



6 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

It was situated on the borders of Moab, not 
far from Mount Pisgah, whose site has lately 
been identified by our Palestine Exploration 
Society. It bears the name of Beer, which signi- 
fies a well-spring. Up to this spot thirsty Israel 
came on their journey from Egypt to Canaan. 
The Lord had just said unto Moses, " Gather the 
people together, and I will give them water." 
Here is a promise; but, like most of God's prom- 
ises, it is coupled with a condition. The condi- 
tion in this case is that the leaders of the congre- 
gation were to dig for the water. 

A striking scene unfolds itself. The leaders 
of the host begin to open the loose sand with the 
staves which they carried. Moses directs the 
work, and the earth is thrown out fast. While 
the digging goes forward the people sing a sim- 
ple song — one of the oldest snatches of song that 
has come down to us: 

" Spring up, O well! Sing ye unto him! 
The princes dug it; the nobles of the people 
opened it, with the lawgiver's sceptre, with the 
staves. ' ' 



THE SONG AT THE) WELL. 7 

Presently the cool water begins to steal in 
and fill up the cavity. The water bubbles up to 
music. The plash of the cool liquid mingles 
with the song of the multitude as they press for- 
ward and draw the sweet refreshment for their 
thirsty tongues. It is an inviting scene and is 
brimming with spiritual instruction. Many a 
sweet lesson may we draw from this outgushing 
well at Beer. 

We learn afresh the good old truth that the 
Lord will provide. It is a grievous sin to doubt 
God or to limit the Holy One of Israel. He can 
open rivers in the midst of the desert, and can 
make the dry land to become springs of water. 
As long as we remain unbelieving our souls parch 
up with the dryness. Poor stingy, faithless pro- 
fessors find their religious life little better than a 
dull march over a very barren Sahara of formal- 
ities. There is no joy in their souls and no song 
on their tongues. As long as Christians neglect 
duty, and forswear prayer, and disobey God they 
must expect nothing else than drought and bar- 
renness. 



& WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

God puts his well-springs of blessing inside 
the gateway of faith, and our faith is to be proved 
by our obedience. As soon as Israel believed 
God enough to dig, and as soon as the staves 
were thrust into the sand, the waters began to 
bubble up. The people began to work, and God 
began to work also. They began to pray also; 
their prayer took the form of a song. They sang 
their prayer: " Spring up, O well !" Really the 
deepest, richest, and devoutest hymns we sing 
are full of aspiration and petition. They are 
yearnings towards God and outcries for blessings. 
That matchless hymn, " Jesus, lover of my soul," 
is the souPs passionate call upon Jesus to open 
his bosom of love and let us hide ourselves there. 
"Nearer, my God, to thee" is a prayer which 
has floated up on the wings of song from thou- 
sands of yearning hearts. i ' Guide me, O thou 
great Jehovah!" is another. When a long-thirst- 
ing church is beginning to arouse into a revi- 
val, its hymns begin to become fervent soul-cries 
for the power from on high. Such song is irre- 
pressible. The soul bursts into it. Petition min- 



THE SONG AT THE WELL. 9 

gles with praise, and the heart's deepest wants 
are blended with the heart's fullest gratitude. 
While we are digging; for the water and praying 
for the water, we are singing for thankfulness 
that the water begins to flow. This complex 
idea runs through all of David's richest Psalms. 
They are blended prayer and praise. 

This triple process belongs to every Chris- 
tian's best labors and sweetest joys. He yearns 
after Jesus, and after a fuller tasting of Jesus' 
love, and after a fuller enduement with the 
Spirit. With his hands he is digging, but with 
his lips he is singing. Duty is no longer drudg- 
ery; it is delight. Witness, all ye beloved breth- 
ren who have experienced the richest joys of revi- 
val seasons, has not preaching the Word, and 
praying for the conversion of sinners, and honest 
work for the Master been a spiritual luxury? 
As you plied the staves and the waters of salva- 
tion gushed out, you have taken out Israel's 
strain, " Spring up, O well. Sing ye unto 
him." 

That gathering at the fountain of Beer was 

2 



10 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

a primitive praise-meeting. We should have 
many such in our churches, and if we were filled 
with the Spirit we would multiply our ( l sacrifi- 
ces of praise. ' ' The more the blessings the more 
the joys, and the more the joys the more the mu- 
sic. While Israel continued to murmur against 
God they were parched with drought. When 
they began to work and to pray and to sing, the 
fountain burst forth. An ounce of song is worth 
a ton of scolding. As a group of sailors on the 
deck, when they pull with a will, always pull to 
the cadence of a song, so God's people will always 
pull with more harmony and strength when they 
join in the voice of praise. ' ' Whoso offereth 
praise glorifieth Me. ' ' God never loves to hear 
us murmur or scold or revile each other. He 
loveth the prayer of faith and the upspringing of 
joyful praise. It was not only Paul's prayer, but 
Paul's midnight song of praise, that shook open 
the old dungeon at Philippi. 

One other thought must not be forgotten as 
we stand by that well of Beer. Those inflowing 
waters are a beautiful type of the Holy Spirit. 



THE SONG AT THE WELL. II 

As the previous scene of the uplifted brazen ser- 
pent is a type of the atoning Saviour, so the 
fountain of Beer is a symbol of the influences of 
the Spirit. Christ himself employed the same 
emblem, as we read in the seventh chapter of 
John's. Gospel. When the divine Spirit flows 
into our souls, then come refreshment, peace, 
strength, holiness, and the sweetest, purest of all 
joys. Then we work for Christ with elastic hope. 
Then we see the fruits of our toil springing up 
like Beer's bursting well. Then we have the 
new song put into our mouths, and our hearts 
make melody. Life becomes an antepast of 
heaven. We are becoming attuned for those 
hallelujahs which we shall sing with rapturous 
sweetness beside that crystal stream which flow- 
eth out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. 



12 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 



CHRIST THE FOUNTAIN. 



4 ' IF any man thirst, let him' come to Me and 
drink I" This was an astonishing announce- 
ment. If Plato had uttered it from his Acade- 
my, it would have savored of boastful presump- 
tion. Yet a Galilean peasant, whose whole 
" school" of followers scarcely went beyond a 
dozen fishermen and publicans, makes this proc- 
lamation to all human kind: "If any one is 
thirsty for pure happiness, I will satisfy him ; if 
any one is suffering from a sense of guilt, I will 
relieve him ; if any one is heart-broken, I will 
comfort him." There is no alternative. Either 
this carpenter's son from Galilee is an insane 
impostor, or else he is a being clothed with di- 
vine power. No madman ever talked for three 
years without uttering one foolish syllable ; no 
impostor ever pushed himself before the public 
eye for three years without doing one selfish act. 



CHRIST THE FOUNTAIN. 13 

Jesus of Nazareth, then, was what he claimed to 
be — the Son of God. 

He does not draw from others his supplies for 
human needs ; he invites everybody to come and 
draw from him. He is not a reservoir filled up 
from some other sources and liable to be exhaust- 
ed ; he is an original, self-supplied fountain- 
head. Never had the face of humanity been 
more parched and dusty and barren than was 
that Oriental world when Jesus burst up through 
it like an artesian well. Even Judaism had be- 
come like a desert, and lo ! there breaks forth 
this gushing fountain of crystal waters. He is 
more than a teacher, giving instruction on all 
profound and practical questions. He is more 
than a miracle- worker, giving sight to the blind, 
ears to the deaf, and healing to the diseased. 
His supreme gift to man is himself. From him- 
self flows forth the recovering influence ; from 
the inexhaustible depths of his own being, as 
" very God of very God," a whole thirsty race 
may draw refreshment. li The water that I give 
shall be in you a well of water springing up into 



14 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

everlasting life." It is not simply profound 
truths that Jesus offers, or a system of doctrine, 
or a beautiful model of right living. He offers 
himself as the satisfier : Drink me, take me into 
your souls, and ye will never die of thirst. 

What a thirsty crowd fills all the thorough- 
fares of life ! Quacks cry their nostrums on ev- 
ery hand. Ambition sets up its di^zy ladder and 
proclaims : If any man thirst for happiness, let 
him come hither and climb. Mammon puts up 
over the doors to his temples of traffic : If any 
man thirst, let him come to me and get rich. 
Pleasure lights her saloons and strings her viols 
and sets out her flagons and cries aloud to the 
passers-by: If any are wretched and thirst for 
enjoyment, let them turn in hither and drink. 
And all these are but miserable, broken cisterns, 
that hold no water. In every human soul is a 
crying want, a hunger that such husks cannot 
feed, a thirst that grows the keener the longer it 
is trifled with. My soul recognises sin and thirsts 
for relief from it. I am so weak that I have been 
overthrown again and again ; I want strength 



CHRIST THE FOUNTAIN. 1 5 

equal to the conflict. My earthly sources of hap- 
piness are precarious. Death has already shat- 
tered more than one beautiful pitcher at my do- 
mestic fountain. God has put within me desires 
and demands that no uncertain rivulet can sat- 
isfy. My soul thirsts for the living Christ ! When 
he opens up the well-spring within me, peace 
flows like a river. Pure motives well forth, de- 
sires after holiness, and love in its satisfying ful- 
ness. Conscience is kept clean and sweet by the 
presence of Christ, the fountain-head. 

This fountain never dries up. It is never 
frozen over. No sediment defiles it. Every 
good thing that I ever sought for outside of Jesus 
Christ has had its defects, and the very best has 
brought a shade of disappointment. But when- 
ever I got a deep draught of Christ's wonderful 
words, they were like Jonathan's honeycomb, 
they " enlightened my eyes." Whenever I have 
swallowed his promises, they have acted on me 
as Professor Tvndall savs the canteen of fresh 
Swiss milk acted on him before he commenced 
the ascent of the Weisshorn — it lubricated his 



l6 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

joints and put new strength into every muscle for 
the hard climb. 

But we must drink from the fountain, if we 
would receive strength, joy, and life. The proc- 
lamation is not, Come to the Bible and read; or, 
Come to the church and listen; or, Come to the 
altar and pray; or, Come to the font and be bap- 
tized; or, Come to the sacramental table and par- 
take. It is, " Come unto ME and drink." This 
is a voluntary act, so simple that a babe under- 
stands it by instinct. On a hot summer day we 
dip the vessel into the cool spring, and, as its 
delicious draught passes into the lips and through 
the whole system, an exquisite refreshment steals 
through every nerve and fibre of the frame. So 
doth faith take in Christ, and his grace reaches 
every faculty and affection of the soul. 

Coleridge said that the best proof of the inspi- 
ration of God's Word was that "it is the only 
book in the world that finds me at every point of 
my nature. ' ' The best argument for Jesus Christ 
is that he alone satisfies me. His grace goes to 
the right spot. His comfort soothes the sore 



CHRIST THE FOUNTAIN. IJ 

place ; his atoning blood makes me sure of par- 
don ; his love cures my wretched selfishness as 
nothing else can do it; of almost every one and 
everything else we can get tired, but what true 
child of Christ ever got tired of the water of life? 
With joy doth he ever draw water from this well 
of salvation. 

Yet tens of thousands around us are perishing, 
not from the want of the life-giving water, but 
because their foolish, depraved hearts do not thirst 
for it. A lady who visited one of the tropical isl- 
ands for health, wrote home to her friends, "This 
is a lovely spot. I have every kindness, and 
abundance of food and fruits and luxuries, but I 
have no appetite. If I could only get an appetite 
I would soon recover." Alas, within a mouth she 
was gone ! She died, not from want of food, but 
from want of hunger; not for lack of refreshing 
drinks, but from the lack of thirst for them. So 
it is the worst symptom of sin in the human soul 
that it kills the appetite for holiness. We crave 
other sources of enjoyment than Christ offers. 
Drugged with the devil's treacherous draughts, 

3 



l8 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

we cry constantly for more, and yet refuse to 
touch the water of life everlasting. Blessed are 
they that thirst after purity and pardon and peace 
and power; for in Christ they may be filled. 

These words are written for those who are 
thirsty. Ye who have a real aspiration for a no- 
bler and purer life, ye who have never yet been 
delivered from the plague and power of sin, listen 
to that celestial voice : "If any man thirst, let 
him come to me and drink!" There is a flock at 
the fountain now. Go and join them. Draw for 
yourself. Drink for yourself. Drink, that your 
joy may be full. In heaven there is a perpetual 
Thanksgiving Day ; for the Lamb who is in the 
midst of the throne is their Shepherd, and he 
leadeth them to ever new fountains of waters of 
life. 



THE GREAT PROMISE. 19 



THE GREAT PROMISE. 



Many of the sorest sorrows in this world are 
caused by broken promises. Oft and again the 
tradesman is brought to embarrassment or even 
bankruptcy, because the promissory notes which 
he held proved to be worthless. How many a 
home is shadowed by the sins of violated vows; 
hearts are broken by the broken promises of wed- 
lock. "Till death us do part n is the solemn en- 
gagement fluently spoken, but it is the "death " 
of affection or of moral character that brings the 
real parting. 

While human promises are so often broken 
by either wilfulness or weakness, it is a glorious 
thought that there is one Faithful Promiser 
whose word is surer than the everlasting hills. 
Sometimes his providence seems to be contradict- 
ing his promises, as when he assured Paul of the 
safety of all 011 board the corn-ship; but all in 



20 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

good time the shipwrecked crew and passengers 
escape safe to land on the broken pieces of the 
ship. We are often too hasty in judging our 
Heavenly Father, and as often mistake what he 
has agreed to give us. He never agrees to give 
us wealth or health, or freedom from care or 
sharp affliction. But "this is the promise that 
he hath promised us, even ETERNAL ufe." A 
great deal more than deliverance from the con- 
demnation of sin is signified by this word "life ;'? 
it is the inbreathing of a new principle by the 
Holy Spirit; it is the vital organic union of the 
soul to the Son of God. Because he lives, we 
shall live also. Our whole spiritual nature is 
elevated, ennobled, purified, and strengthened by 
having this Christ-life infused. We do not lose 
our individuality or our responsibility to do our 
utmost in watchfulness or in work. The disci- 
ples on Galilee in the night-storm must all pull 
at the oars, even though Jesus was on board both 
as pilot and preserver. Christ's almighty grace 
bestows the new life, and maintains it, and most 
lovingly aids it; but after all, you and I must do 



THE GREAT PROMISE. 21 

the living. If we have only a gasping, feeble, 
fruitless life when he offers to give it u more 
abundantly, n then it is our own criminal fault. 
We must work out our own salvation, even while 
he is working in us and upon us. 

The real grandeur of this grand promise is 
that Jesus guarantees never to desert us. "My 
grace is sufficient for you " means all that it as- 
serts. " No man shall be able to pluck you out 
of my hands n means that the hand that holds is 
omnipotent; all our concern must be to stay in 
that hand. We are kept by the power of God, 
through faith, unto salvation. A young minis- 
ter, while visiting the cabin of a veteran Scotch 
woman who had grown ripe in experience, said 
to her, "Nannie, what if, after all your prayers 
and watching and waiting, God should suffer 
your soul to be eternally lost?" Looking at the 
youthful tyro in divinity, she replied, "Ac, dearie 
me, is that a' the length ye hae got to, my mon? 
God, let me tell ye, would hae the greatest loss. 
Poor Nannie wad only lose her soul, and that wad 
be a great loss; but God wad lose his honor and 



22 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

his character. If he brak his word, he wad mak 
himself a liar, and a' the universe wad gae to 
ruin." 

The veteran believer was right. Our only 
real ground of salvation lies in God's everlasting 
word. This is the promise which he hath prom- 
ised; let us cleave to that. If the title-deed to 
my house is safely lodged in the register's office 
of Brooklyn, why should I lie awake at night 
for fear of ejectment from the premises? It is 
my business to continue in the house, and it is 
the city's business to keep secure my title to it. 
Just two things are essential to a Christian's hope 
of salvation. The first one is that he must be 
sure that he is alive — and life is self-evidencing. 
A corpse never breathes or answers questions. 
As long as you really breathe out honest peni- 
tence and desires after God, as long as you feel 
any degree of genuine love to Jesus, as long as 
your lips move in sincere prayer and your hands 
move in obedience to Christ's commandment, 
you are not a corpse; you are alive. The life 
may be too languid and feeble, but it is there. 



THE GREAT PROMISE. 23 

Make sure of that by honest self-searching, and 
by a comparison of yourself with what Christ de- 
mands. When your state corresponds to the 
Christian's state, as described in the Bible, you 
have the witness of the Spirit that you are his. 
Having this actual life, strive to have it more 
abundantly ; the more you have, the richer, 
purer, stronger, and more useful you become. 

Being assured that we are born again and are 
living to-day, the other essential is from God, and 
belongs exclusively to him. You and I have 
nothing to do with it. God will take care of his 
own promises. If he said, " He that believeth 
hath everlasting life," you have nothing to do 
except believe and obey. Last year I sat at 
eventide on the battlements of the castellated 
convent of Mar Saba, and looked down into the 
deep gorge of the Kidron. All night I lay secure 
in the strong fortress while the jackals howled 
and the Bedouin prowled without. So may 
every child of God who has lodged himself in the 
stronghold of the divine promise rest securely, 
and let the devil's jackals howl as loudly as they 



24 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

choose, or the adversary lie in wait outside the 
solid gateway. "This is the promise that He 
hath promised us, even eternal life." Cleave to 
that ! As long as we trust God in Christ, and at- 
test our faith by our conduct, we may roll the re- 
sponsibility of our salvation upon God himself. 

But will this life outlast the grave? Will it 
reach across that great mysterious chasm that 
separates us from the unseen world ? Will it be 
eternal? These are the questions which some- 
times torment the survivors when they have gone 
down to the shore of the unbridged river, and 
watched a beloved child or husband or wife dis- 
appear slowly out of sight. ( ' Can I feel sieve 
that there is a heaven for that loved one to land 
in?" But nobody comes back from that other 
world, nobody ever will come back, to bring a 
single syllable of assurance. The boats on that 
river of death all head one way; there are no 
1 4 return trips. ' ' 

Suppose that one should come back and tell 
us that he had actually found a heaven, and en- 
tered it, and participated in its splendors and 



THE GREAT PROMISE. 25 

joys. If we believed the statement, it would 
have to be on a single human authority. But if 
we would believe the witness of a man, is not the 
witness of the Almighty God infinitely greater ? 
If we are only to feel sure of a heaven on the tes- 
timony of somebody coming back to each one of 
us, then would we consent to exercise a faith 
that glorifies a worm of the dust and dishonors 
the God of the universe. For one, I would rath- 
er trust a single word of divine promise, than a 
million of human assertions. Just open to the 
first chapter of that epistle which the Holy Spir- 
it wrote by Peter's hand, and read the third, 
fourth, and fifth verses. If you, as a follower of 
Christ, do not feel sure of an u inheritance re- 
served for you" then you would not believe 
though an army of saints came back from the 
skies. Then trust God! Let your faith be 

" the living power from heaven 



That grasps the promise God has given ; 

Securely fixed on Christ alone, 

Your trust shall ne'er be overthrown." 



2,6 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 



PATCHING THE OLD GARMENT. 



Some of our Lord's parables are to be weighed 
rather than measured. Brief as to space, they 
are most profound and practical in their signifi- 
cance. In a single verse is compressed the fol- 
lowing parable: u No man seweth a piece of new 
cloth on an old garment; else the new piece that 
filled it up taketh away (or teareth away) from 
the old, and the rent is made worse." 

No sensible man would patch an old, thread- 
bare, out- worn garment with a piece of undressed 
and unfulled cloth, and for two good reasons: 
the ill-matched patch would make an ugly ap- 
pearance, and the strong cloth would soon tear out 
from the weak, rotten fabric, and the whole pro- 
cess would end in failure. By this pithy parable 
the Great Teacher taught that the old dispensa- 
tion of ceremonial observances had had its day 
and become obsolete. His gospel was a new sys- 
tem of religious faith and methods, entirely com- 



PATCHING THE OLD GARMENT. 27 

plete and adequate for all persons and all time. 
Any attempt to engraft it upon the out- worn sys- 
tem of Judaism would be abortive. The new 
faith was to be embodied in renovated forms of 
speech and forms of service. 

This parable has a very practical bearing 
upon the vital point of character, and the vital 
process of conversion. Hardly any simile de- 
scribes character better than that of a fabric, 
made up of innumerable threads, and put to- 
gether by numberless stitches. The earliest 
stitches are commonly put in by a mother's 
hand ; the subsequent work of Sunday-school 
teachers and pastors may do much in the ma- 
king or the marring of the fabric. A great many 
poor, sleazy fabrics have a smooth and substantial 
look, but in the wear of life they betray the weak 
spots and ravel out. Some people also are not 
stoutly sewed; they are only basted. When the 
warp and woof of character is weak and worth- 
less, when it is badly rotted by sin, there are two 
methods of repair : the one is to patch up the 
old; the other is to discard it altogether and pro- 



28 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

cure an entirely new fabric. The first is man's 
plan; the second is Christ's plan. The fatal ob- 
jection to the first method is that a patched char- 
acter does not look well and will not last. Har- 
mony is a prime essential of beauty, and a bright 
strip of virtue pieced in upon a godless life only 
makes the rest of the fabric look more unsightly. 
Nor is there strength enough in the fabric to hold 
the incongruous patch. 

We ministers make a sad mistake when we 
direct our main efforts against particular sins, 
instead of striking at the source of all sins, a god- 
less, unrenewed heart. Make the tree good, and 
the fruit will be good. Many a drunkard, dis- 
gusted and horrified by his own loathsome vice, 
has made a solemn resolution to break off his evil 
practice, but has not gone the whole length of 
seeking a new heart and the mighty help of God. 
He has attempted to patch a new habit on an old 
unregenerate heart. Even his temperance pledge 
may soon tear out and the rent be made worse. 
Such men as John B. Gough and Mr. Sawyer 
testify that what the inebriate needs is the new 



PATCHING THE OLD GARMENT. 29 

fabric wrought by the almighty power of the Holy 
Spirit. So with all kindred sins of falsehood, 
Sabbath-breaking, lechery, covetousness, and the 
like. A man may be shamed out of certain pub- 
lic acts of Sabbath desecration, and yet hide away 
a Sabbathless heart in his own house, and spend 
the day in utter defiance of God. An eloquent 
appeal may wring a contribution out of a stingy 
soul ; but he will lock his purse the tighter the 
next time, and confirm his covetousness. What 
he needs is the melting power of a new affection; 
if he does not give from a right motive, he is 
none the better for having his money extorted 
from him. Barnabas gave his land to the Chris- 
tian church because he had first given his heart 
to Jesus. In all my long ministry I have never 
been able to patch up a sinner so that he will 
look and act like a genuine Christian. 

Christ's method of dealing with human char- 
acter is the only thorough and successful method. 
He says, " Behold, I make all things new." If 
any man be in Christ, and Christ in him, he is a 
new creature. The rotten garment has been dis- 



30 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

carded, and the complete righteousness has been 
put on so that the shame of his nakedness might 
be hid. How sharply Jesus clove to the core of 
the matter with Nicodemus ! He does not tell the 
inquiring Pharisee to go home and reform cer- 
tain bad habits, but u thou must be born again." 
The young ruler was able to display some very 
bright patches of virtue, and expected to be 
praised for them; but when the Saviour offered 
him the entirely new garment that cost self-de- 
nial, and yet would pass him into heaven, the 
poor fellow went away with his old patched robe 
disappointed and sorrowful. God has ordained 
this principle: that no pardon of sin and no spir- 
itual blessing can ever be obtained except through 
an inward acceptance of Christ, and an entire re- 
generation by the Holy Spirit. The supreme 
gift of the Lord Jesus is a new character. The 
apostles never wasted a moment on a gospel of 
patchwork. Their twofold text was, ( ' Turn to 
the lyord," which meant repentance, and "Cleave 
to the Lord," which meant a life of faith and 
holiness. 



PATCHING THE OLD GARMENT. 31 

It is quite in line with this idea of spiritual 
clothing that the apostle exhorts every one to 
"put on the Lord Jesus Christ. " That signifies 
the entire inwrapping and infolding of ourselves 
in the holy texture of his perfect righteousness 
and all-sufficient grace. We walk inside of our 
clothes. So a consistent Christian walks inside 
of the beautiful garment which Christ has woven 
for him and wrapped about him. Bear in mind 
that it is a u seamless robe" which the dear Mas- 
ter provides for us; we must have it all or none. 
How warm it is in its ample protection against 
all weathers ! How beautiful it is when washed 
white in the blood of the Lamb ! How well it 
iv cars ! I have seen it look brighter than new 
after fifty years of hard service, and in heaven 
that wedding-garment will make even a pauper 
to shine like an angel of light. 

With such a beauty of holiness offered to us, 
why should so many professors of religion be 
content to be only a bit of shreds and patches? 
Certainly no unconverted worldling is ever so 
charmed by them as to come and say to them, 



32 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

" Where did you find that? I want something 
just like it." Inconsistent Christians simply dis- 
gust the people of the world, and lead them to 
say, " If that be Christianity, I don't want it; 
my coat is as good as that, and better, ' } A poor 
fabric is made none the better by the patchwork 
of public prayers or professions. A reconversion, 
a new heart- work, and a renovation of the very 
warp and woof of character, is what God requi- 
reth. And what a new power and beauty and 
irresistible influence would go forth from all our 
churches if we were all freshly clad in Christ 
Jesus ! 

" This spotless robe the same appears 
When ruined nature sinks in years. 
No age can change its glorious hue ; 
The robe of Christ is ever new." 



A GOOD LIFE. 33 



A GOOD LIFE— HOW TO BEGIN IT. 



Some persons who honestly desire to begin a 
better life are puzzled about the first steps. They 
imagine that some intense excitement, either 
within themselves, or around them in the form 
of a " revival, n may be indispensable. This is 
a grievous mistake. Many a genuine conversion 
has been attended by the anguish of a pungent 
conviction of sin, and the joy of a sudden relief 
and inlet of peace; but we doubt whether one- 
half of the sincerest Christians have had pre- 
cisely this experience. For any one to wait for 
such an experience is folly; for any one to de- 
mand it from God is insane presumption. 

There is one case of conversion mentioned in 
the New Testament which affords a beautiful 
illustration of the right way to begin a good, 
honest, useful Christian life. The man himself 
was not a genius, and his spiritual change had 

5 



34 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

nothing dramatic or ' ' sensational ' 1 about it. He 
belonged to a very odious class — the tax-collect- 
ors of Palestine. The average Jew regarded the 
publican who wrung out of him tribute for Caesar 
very much as the average i ' I,and-L,eaguer ' ' in 
Ireland has regarded the British Ministry. The 
Jew never paid his tax without a grudge and a 
growl; if the publican himself were a Jew, he 
was excluded from the temple and from all social 
intercourse with his countrymen. 

Our Lord, in the course of his walk from 
Capernaum to the country, came across one of 
these detested publicans sitting at the place of 
toll. The toll-booth was a sort of Oriental cus- 
tom-house; not a permanent building, but a shed 
or arbor by the roadside. The collector of taxes 
who sat at the booth was a Jew named Levi; he 
is elsewhere called Matthew — a name which sig- 
nifies ' ( the gift of God. ' ' Jesus was probably no 
stranger to him, for every well-informed man 
must already have heard of the wonderful proph- 
et from Nazareth whose words and works were 
the talk of all Galilee. 



A GOOD UFE. 35 

Christ approaches the publican kindly, and 
addresses to him that short, simple sentence 
which seems to have been his frequent formula 
of invitation. He just said to Levi, "Follow 
me." That is precisely what he says to every 
immortal soul through his Gospel of Love. 
Christ wanted Levi— or Matthew— and Matthew 
needed him. Those two brief, pithy words 
changed the whole career of the publican; they 
killed the old covetous self, and gave birth to 
a new and noble character. We are told that 
Matthew " left all, rose up, and followed n Jesus. 
There was no outbreak of compunction that we 
read of; certainly there was no dallying or delay. 
He saw his duty; he did it. 

Now what did the publican leave? Not his 
property, for he soon after gave our Lord a hos- 
pitable entertainment in his house. He left his 
old and odious business; he left his spiritual 
errors and blindness; he left his worldly aim and 
his wicked heart behind. He found a new call- 
ing; he found peace of conscience; he found a 
field of amazing usefulness (as a disciple and 



36 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

afterwards as an inspired evangelist) ; lie found a 
Friend — and finally an everlasting inheritance 
among the crowned ones in the New Jerusalem. 

Here is a model for you, my friend, if you 
are willing to yield to the Holy Spirit, and to 
begin a new style of acting and living. Can 
you make a wiser choice than Matthew made ? 
He was a plain, every-day man, busy at his 
offensive line of work. By no means an extraor- 
dinary personage like Saul of Tarsus, and by 
no means awakened by a lightning-flash like the 
brilliant and bloody persecutor. He did not wait 
for a Pentecost, nor for any external pressure of 
excitement. Neither should you. Under the 
influence of a strong call from the Lord Jesus 
himself, he decided. So can you. There was 
entire free agency. Matthew was moved by the 
divine love that appealed to him; his reason and 
conscience were convinced ; his heart was in the 
step when he rose up and followed the divine 
Teacher from Nazareth. 

Nothing but your own stubborn, selfish, sin- 
ful will has kept you so long from accepting the 



A GOOD LIFE. 37 

precious gift of eternal life. All the surrender 
that has been required of you is to give up what 
is wrong. All the duty that is required of you is 
to do what is right. You must abandon your 
besetting sins, and do so voluntarily. This may 
cost you some struggle and self-denial, but God 
will help you through. The publican u rose 
up" without losing any time, or tampering with 
the loving invitation. It was now or never. 
Even so must your acceptance of Christ be 
prompt, and your obedience be sincere and prac- 
tical. Matthew did the very first thing that Je- 
sus bade him do. Are you ready to do as much? 
If not, you are rejecting Christ, and throwing 
away all hope of a better, purer, safer, and holier 
life. 

The chief thing, observe, that the publican 
did was to follow Jesus. He did not dictate, or 
mark out a course for himself, or insist on having 
his own way. He chose to go in Christ's way, 
and precisely so must it be with you if you would 
be a Christian in this world, and have the Chris- 
tian's home in the next world. Christ goes be- 



38 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

fore you; follow him. He gives you his illumi- 
nating Word ; study and obey it. He offers you 
a line of usefulness; enter it. If he demands of 
you a cross, you may so bear it as to make it a 
crown. Do not linger, I implore you. Death 
will soon find you, and cut you down in your 
guilt; your last chance will be gone ! Up to 
that hour at the toll-booth Matthew's life was 
chaff; thenceforth it was precious wheat. Your 
life without Christ is chaff for the flames of per- 
dition. Listen to Jesus; obey him; follow him; 
and you may open a new life whose golden grain 
will be a part of the glorious harvest of heaven. 



BE THOROUGH. 39 



BE THOROUGH. 



The bravest man of his time in Jerusalem 
stood up in the temple gateway, on a public oc- 
casion, and delivered a very short but a very 
searching sermon. It was a model of plain, pun- 
gent preaching. He did not utter any message 
evolved from his own brain; he gave them God's 
message. It ran on this wise: " All ye people of 
Judah, if ye will thoroughly amend your ways and 
your doings, then will I cause you to dwell in this 
place, in the land that I gave to your fathers. n 
The moral condition of the people had become 
deplorable. The command to them is, thorough 
reform of character and conduct. A rich prom- 
ise is made to them if they obey; if they remain 
wedded to their sins, their temple and their 
homes would be left to them desolate. 

Jeremiah's pithy address to his countrymen is 
a capital text for our times. Wherever churches 



40 WAYSIDK SPRINGS. 

are following the "Week of Prayer" with spe- 
cial religious services for the conversion of souls, 
pastors cannot go amiss in using it. President 
Finney, in the days of his greatest power, used 
to take such passages as this to drive them like a 
plough beam-deep through the consciences of his 
auditors. So he broke up the fallow ground and 
got it ready for the seed of the gospel. He be- 
lieved in thorough work, in a thorough exposure 
of the wickedness of human hearts, in a thorough 
conviction of sin, in a thorough reformation of 
character under the mighty workings of the re- 
newing Holy Spirit. 

The fatal mistake of many people is that they 
seek for a cheap religion. Some preachers and 
teachers, in their desire to recommend the glori- 
ous freeness of the gospel and the simplicity of 
faith, hold out the idea that it is the " easiest 
thing in the world to become a Christian." 
They hold up very attractively summer-religion, 
which is all clear weather and sunshine, and 
Christianity as a sort of close-covered carriage, 
in which one can ride for nothing and be safely 



BE THOROUGH. 41 

landed, without too many jolts, at the gateway 
of heaven. Very little allowance is made by 
these rose-water teachers for the stubborn de- 
pravity of the human heart, for the tremendous 
power of the adversary, and for the poisonous 
atmosphere through which one must fight his 
way to the "prize of the high calling." Grand 
old Samuel Rutherford, in his nervous, incisive 
way, says, " Many people only play with Chris- 
tianity, and take Christ for almost nothing. I 
pray you to make your soul sure of salvation, 
and make the seeking of heaven your daily work. 
If ye never had a sick night and a pained soul 
for sin, ye have not yet lighted upon Christ. 
Look to the right marks; if ye love him better 
than the world, and would quit all the world for 
him, then that provcth that the zuork is sound." 
Probably no writer has ever combined the rich- 
est, sweetest ecstasies of devotion with a more 
pungent exhibition of the plainest rules of every- 
day morality. 

The first step towards a genuine, abiding 
Christian character is repentance of sin. John 

6 



42 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

Baptist made this the keynote of his ministry, 
which was a preparatory work for the Messiah, 
just at the door. Jesus himself struck the same 
note. Matthew tells us that "from that time 
Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent!" 
When the apostle Peter delivered that Pente- 
costal discourse which pricked into three thou- 
sand hearts, and they cried out, ' c What shall we 
do ? n his prompt answer was, "Repent!" There 
is a logical necessity in this ; for no man can 
cleave to his sins and lay hold of Christ with the 
same hand. No man can turn to the Lord until 
he has turned his back upon his evil practices 
and is willing to thoroughly amend his ways and 
his doings. Our beloved brother Moody, indeed, 
once declared that he had had far more success 
when he has preached Christ's goodness than 
when he has preached upon repentance; and this 
reveals the only weak point we have ever dis- 
covered in the methods of this most popular and 
powerful preacher of the Word. An immediate 
and temporary ( ( success 5 ! may be gained by in- 
ducing a person to rise up and declare that he 



BE) THOROUGH. 43 

believes in so lovable a being as Christ Jesus, 
and yet that same person may soon drift back 
under the dominion of the sins which he had 
never intelligently abandoned. We doubt wheth- 
er any person ever lays thorough hold on the Sa- 
viour until he feels the need of one who can save 
him from his sins. Certainly no one in that 
death-trap of a hotel in Milwaukee even dreamed 
of flying to the fire-escapes until he was aroused 
to the dangers from the crackling flames. Why 
should any man betake himself to a Saviour, if 
he does not realize that he needs one, and that 
there is an abominable and deadly evil in his own 
heart and life that he must be saved from ? 

When David's eyes had been opened to be- 
hold the loathsome depravity of his own conduct, 
he asks for no compromise, but cries out, "Wash 
me thoroughly from my iniquity." He was ready 
to be thrown, like a filthy garment, into the 
caustic alkalies, to be rubbed and mauled and 
beaten until the black spots were cleansed away 
from the fabric. Such an abhorrence of sin it is 
the office of the Holy Spirit to produce; there- 



44 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

fore should we pray for the Spirit. Such a view 
of his guilt it is the office of the minister to bring 
before every unconverted man ; therefore should 
the minister hold up the exceeding sinfulness of 
sin. The clearer the view of sin, the more thor- 
ough is likely to be the repentance. ' i Ye must 
be born again, n said the Master to his anxious 
inquirer, Nicodemus. But the new birth, or re- 
generation, is the production of a new principle 
in us, which is antagonistic to sin as well as 
obedient to God. 

The only evidence of repentance is thorough 
reformation. This takes hold both upon charac- 
ter and conduct; character as what we are, and 
conduct as what we do. This amendment must 
be thorough and go to the roots, or it will be as 
evanescent as the morning dew. The shallow 
1 ( conversions ' ' that are so often trumpeted as 
the result of shallow, sensational preaching, end 
in very shallow and short-lived religion. That 
dark and dismal fount-head of the heart is not 
purified by the Spirit, and pretty soon the foul 
streams begin to trickle out again into the daily 



BK THOROUGH. 45 

conduct. Bad habits are not pulled up. The 
sharp practices are soon resumed in business 
transactions, or the young man soon drifts back 
into his convivial haunts; the unconquered bad 
temper begins to take fire and explode again ; the 
covetous spirit gets hold again with a fresh grip; 
in short, the new emotion passes away, but it does 
not leave a new man. Christ has no hand in such 
conversions. They are a delusion, often an un- 
measured curse. When Jesus is presented and 
pressed upon a sinner's acceptance, he must be 
presented as not only infinitely beautiful, tender, 
compassionate, and lovable, but as so infinitely 
holy that his eyes flash flame through everything 
wrong. The very bitterness of his sacrificial suf- 
ferings for us on the cross arose from the bitter- 
ness of the sin he died to atone. 

One thought more. Genuine conversion de- 
mands thorough amendment of conduct, and no 
exception must be made for what we call little 
sins. It is not every one who is sunk, like the 
u City of Brussels, " by one tremendous hole sto- 
veh through in an instant; small leaks, left un- 



46 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

stopped, are equally fatal. Maclaren well says 
that c ■ the worst and most fatal are often those 
small continuous vices which root underneath 
and honeycomb the soul. Many a man who 
thinks himself a Christian is in more danger 
from the daily commission, for example, of small 
pieces of sharp practice in his business, than ever 
King David was at his worst. White ants pick 
a carcass clean sooner than a lion will. ' ' 

There is a transcendent promise that accom- 
panies such thorough amendment of character 
and life. "I will let you dwell in this place." 
This bespeaks peace and permanence under the 
benignant smile of God. This means room to 
root and to grow. A soul that is rooted into 
Christ will thrive like a tree planted by the riv- 
ers of water; the leaves shall never wither, and 
death will be only a transplanting into glory. 



CHRIST'S JKWKLS. 47 



CHRIST'S JEWELS. 



The Lord Jesus when on earth was one of the 
poorest of men. He was born to poverty; he was 
cradled in a stable; he went through his brief 
life on foot; he had no home during his ministry 
in which to lay his weary head; and his crucified 
body was buried in a family tomb borrowed from 
an almost stranger. Yet he was all the time lay- 
ing the foundations for the most magnificent pos- 
sessions in the universe of God. He was accu- 
mulating the only treasures that can outlast this 
fleeting globe. They are innumerable luuncui 
souls redeemed by him unto everlasting glory. 
To them his prophetic eye looked forward when 
he said, "They shall be mine in that day when 
I make up my jewels. " More closely rendered, 
the passage is, "They shall be my peculiar treas- 
ure in the day I am preparing." 

For one, I like the familiar phraseology in 



48 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

our common version. Christians are Christ's 
jewels. They are purchased by atoning blood; 
at an infinite price was this divine ownership se- 
cured. As the pearls are only won from the 
depths of the sea by the dangerous dive of the 
fishers, so were the pearls for Messiah's crown 
brought up from the miry depths of depravity by 
the descent of that divine Sufferer who came to 
seek and to save the lost. The most brilliant 
and precious gem known to us is of the same 
chemical substance as the black and opaque coal 
of the mine. Crystallization turns the carbon 
into the diamond. The grace of the Lord Jesus 
transforms an opaque soul, as black by nature as 
the jet, into a jewel which reflects the glory of 
Christ's countenance. All the lustre that the ri- 
pest Christian character possesses is but the re- 
flection of that Sun of Righteousness. He who 
lives nearest to Jesus shines the brightest. A 
" pearl cast before swine" is not more out of 
place than is a professed follower of Jesus in the 
society of scoffers or in the haunts of revelry. 
Not all precious jewels glitter in conspicuous 



CHRIST'S JEWELS. 49 

positions. The Master has his hidden ones; 
there are costly sapphires beneath coarse raiment 
and up in the dingy attic of poverty. That self- 
denying daughter who wears out her youthful 
years in nursing a poor infirm mother is a ruby 
of whom the Master saith, "Thou art mine in 
the day when I gather my jewels." Many a 
precious pearl do our faithful Sunday-school 
teachers fish up from the dregs of ignorance into 
their mission-schools. From an awful depth did 
Jesus rescue that converted inebriate near whom 
we sat last Sabbath at the communion-table. 
All soul-saving work is a pearl-fishery for King 
Jesus. 

"We are His workmanship, M said the great 
apostle; and the lustre of a gem depends much 
on the polishing. This is often a sharp and a 
severe process. Many of God's people can recall 
the times when they were under the terrible file, 
or were pressed down to the grinding-wheel. 
Blessed be the affliction, however fierce, that 
gives new lustre to the diamond ! The Master 
spendeth no time upon worthless pebbles; only 



50 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

his jewels are polished after the similitude of a 
palace. Nor is this process only wrought by the 
divine hand; every Christian must strive to make 
his or her own character the more shapely and 
beautiful. 4 ' The roughnesses must be smoothed 
by careful, painstaking self-control, the untrue 
angles must be cut down by self-sacrifice, the 
surface must be evened by daily work and 
spiritual exercise — even trials and sorrows must 
be borne patiently, knowing that they will give 
the character an added lustre which will more 
worthily reflect the Master's image." 

When these jewels are made ready for his 
many crowns, Christ will take them home unto 
himself. Luther said that there is great divinity 
in the pronouns of Scripture. " They shall be 
mine, saith the L,ord. n This claim is founded on 
the purchase made in redeeming blood. Regen- 
eration by the Holy Spirit confirms it, and every 
true believer is also self-surrendered to the own- 
ership of Christ. Up to the hour of conversion 
we had other proprietors — self^ sin, and the devil. 
Now Jesus says to each Christian, Thou art 



CHRIST'S JEWELS. 51 

mine; I own thee. I will instruct thee, and pol- 
ish thee, and put thee where it pleaseth me. I 
will take care of thy salvation, and no man 
shall pluck thee out of my hand. Thou- shalt 
be my peculiar treasure in the day of my tri- 
umphant appearing. I will place thee in my 
crown. 

What a coronation day that will be ! All 
else on this globe will be but as lumber and 
rubbish — fit only for the flames — in comparison 
with his choice ones. Then shall the homeless 
man of Nazareth come into full possession of 
his magnificent trophies. The lost in hell will 
be outnumbered by the saved in heaven. They 
that curse Him in the pit will be far fewer 
than they that crown him in the Paradise. On 
the head once bleeding with the thorns will 
flash the diadem of his imperial glory. And 
then will all the universe confess that the ran- 
som was worth all its bitter cost of agonies, when 
the King shall ascend his throne of victory, and 
be encircled with the constellations of his jewels. 



52 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 



CITIZENS OF HEAVEN. 



ThERE is no meaning at all in the first clause 
of the twentieth verse of the third chapter of 
Philippians — " for our conversation is in heav- 
en" — if we use the word " conversation " in its 
ordinary modern sense. But if we render the 
sentence according to the original Greek (as it 
has been done in the new Revision), we have 
the vividly impressive truth, ( c Our citizenship is 
in heaven." To the Christians at Philippi this 
expression had a peculiar point, for Philippi was 
a Roman colony; Augustus had made it such 
after his victory over Brutus. The people were 
proud of the fact that they belonged to imperial 
Rome, and received their laws from the city of 
the Caesars. While living in Philippi, their citi- 
zenship was in that proud capital which ruled 
the world from the banks of the Tiber. 

Even so is every true child of God a citizen 



CITIZENS OF HEAVEN. 53 

of heaven. Our homestead is on high. A part 
of the blood-bought family are there already, 
and every day witnesses the home-coming of 
thousands more. Only a thin veil separates me 
from the multitudes around the throne; when 
death drops the veil, I am there ! Here on earth 
I am but a pilgrim — a transient lodger, for this 
is not my rest. Here we who are Christ's have 
no continuing city ; we are seeking for and press- 
ing towards the magnificent city that hath foun- 
dations, whose builder is the Almighty. A won- 
drous comfort does this thought bring to us amid 
the discomforts and the sharp trials on the road. 
This life is only our training-school, to purify us 
and make us more "meet" for the heavenly 
community among whom we expect to dwell. 

If citizens of the New Jerusalem, then our 
laws come from thence. The phrase u higher 
law " used to be jeered at by compromising poli- 
ticians; but no statesmanship, no party, no pol- 
icy can stand the test which is not conformed 
to God's everlasting law of right. The best cit- 
izens of this republic are those whose lives are 



54 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

loyal to the higher law which God has written 
in his Word. No statute is fit to be enacted 
which contravenes God's truth; and that pro- 
fessed Christian is a coward and a traitor to his 
Master who does not carry his religion into his 
politics as much as into his business pursuits or 
his household. 

" If ye love me," said our loving Redeemer, 
( ' keep my commandments. ' ' The world around 
us has its unwritten code of morals and of man- 
ners. It sets up its standards and fixes its fash- 
ions to suit itself. But they are no rule for you 
and me; Jesus has u chosen us out of the world," 
and given his own life to be our standard and 
our pattern. Every consistent Christian's motto 
should be: I must live for this world, and yet not 
be of it. Daniel did his best service for wicked 
Babylon by keeping his windows open towards 
Jerusalem, and by loyalty to its everlasting King. 
This world never will be converted by conform- 
ity to it; but it would be overwhelmingly im- 
pressed by the sight of a vast body of people who 
should live and speak and act as the citizens of 



CITIZENS OF HEAVEN. 55 

heaven itself. What a salt would our influence 
be; what a power would our example be; what 
a trumpet our every word ! 

Every Christian, therefore, should dare to be 
singular. It is of little account to be judged of 
man's judgment; he who judgeth us is the Lord. 
We are members of society, and bound to con- 
tribute our very utmost to its benefit; but we do 
that best by remembering that our first allegiance 
is to that society whose leader is Christ. We re- 
port to headquarters. The first question with me 
as a Christian is, What does my Master com- 
mand? Would he approve my mode of doing 
business, my style of living, my amusements, my 
temper, my whole daily conduct ? If so, that is 
enough. My citizenship is with him, and I 
must see to it that other people recognize that 
fact. I am not u to be had ' ' when sinful cus- 
toms make their claims, or worldly seductions 
offer their bribes. 

If I am Christ's servant, then I am a citizen 
of no mean city — a member of no mean family. 
Let every Christian assert his high birth by his 



56 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

high bearing. He is never to stoop to anything 
low, never to be caught at contemptible tricks, 
never found in suspicious places. As high as 
the heavens are above the earth, so much higher 
should a Christian's ways and words and whole 
conduct be above the ways of sinners. He should 
never ' ' apologise ' > to the world for daring to do 
right. 

If we are citizens of heaven, let us be ever 
setting our affections on things above, on the 
treasures that are laid up at His right hand. 
Just as surely as we set our hearts on any lower 
objects, our hearts are apt to be broken. But 
when I climb high enough to put my heart, my 
aims, my most treasured things in the keeping 
of my Saviour, then Satan himself cannot reach 
them. Is not this the true l ( higher life, ' ' after 
all? 

The amazing grandeur and glory of this citi- 
zenship of heaven will be fully realized when 
we get there. John says that once ( ' there was 
silence in heaven for the space of half an hour. ' \ 
Surely if you or I reach the Celestial City, and 



CITIZENS OF HKAVKN. 57 

are ushered into its transcendent light and rush 
of melodies, we may well be struck silent with 
unutterable wonder that we are there. Yet we 
shall be there, if we secure our title through 
Christ's atoning blood, and if we walk worthy 
of our high calling, and if we endure as seeing 
him who is invisible. Then we colonists on this 
planet shall go home to our mother country, and 
be for ever with our King- ! 



8 



58 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 



GIVE CHRIST THE BEST. 



u Th£ best is always good enough for me," 
was the playful reply of a lady friend of ours 
when we asked her which of several things she 
would prefer. What our friend said playfully 
may be applied in all seriousness to the gifts 
which every Christian ought to offer to his Re- 
deemer. The best is never too good for him; in 
fact, we should never put off our Lord with any- 
thing less. 

The primal idea of true Christianity is this 
giving to Jesus all we have and all we are. This 
is one important meaning of that much-perverted 
word sanctification. Some people use it to signify 
a process of purification, or a putting off of moral 
filthiness, until a perfect sinlessness is reached. 
But the ordinary meaning of ' 4 sanctify " is to set 
apart, to consecrate to God. When Jesus said, 
M I sanctify myself," he certainly did not affirm 



GIVE) CHRIST THE BEST. 59 

that he was putting off impurity and becoming 
perfectly holy. He had never been anything 
else than sinless. He intended to say, ' 4 1 conse- 
crate myself to the redemption of man and the 
fulfilment of my Father's will." A true Chris- 
tian life is the continual consecration of our bod- 
ily powers, of our energies, our affections, our 
money, our influence to Him who bought us 
with his blood. The more willing we are to give 
Jesus the very best we have, the more nearly are 
we attaining to genuine holiness. Is this the 
usual practice of those who profess and call them- 
selves Christian ? 

Take the matter of money. How many 
Christians habitually give a due share of their 
income to the Lord? "Ah, I cannot afford to 
give so much as I once did," is a very current 
apology. Yes; but you have not retrenched in 
your style of living. You began by cutting down 
in your contributions to benevolence, when that 
ought to have been the very last thing to be 
touched when retrenchment was forced upon 
you. The true principle is, give God the first 



60 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

claim, and let others wait until lie has been 
served. c ( When I get any money, ' ' said Eras- 
mus, " I buy books; if any is left I buy clothes." 
There spoke the genuine scholar. 

But too many Christians say in practice, "If 
I am making money, I shall treat myself to a new 
carriage, or my family to new furniture, etc. ; if 
there is anything over, I will put it in the contri- 
bution-box. ' ' The fattest sheep is killed for the 
table of selfishness. The poor ( ( crow-bait ' ' is 
palmed off for sacrifice upon God's altar. This 
same wretched principle is manifested when six 
days are given to business, and one or two even- 
ing hours are stingily begrudged to the prayer- 
meeting or to works of benevolence. The pun- 
ishment of all such petit larceny of the Lord is 
that the perpetrators become mere " crow-baits " 
spiritually, and never taste the rich morsels which 
God bestows. " The liberal soul shall be made 
fat; n all the rest are but skin and bone. 

Here is a solemn question for parents in 
training their children, and for Christian sons 
and daughters in choosing their calling. u That 



GIVE CHRIST THE BEST. 6l 

boy is a very bright fellow; I will make a law- 
yer of him. His brother is a good conscien- 
tious chap ; but he has brains enough, I think, 
for a parson." So reasons the pater familias, 
and the sons catch the infection. The one with 
ten talents goes to the Bar, and perhaps be- 
comes a great advocate and a very small Chris- 
tian. The one with two talents consecrates them 
to the work of winning souls, and becomes the 
heir of a great inheritance in heaven. God 
blessed the one who gave him the best he had; 
the other " reaped where he had sowed," and 
did not get a basketful. 

Jesus Christ has a sovereign right to the best 
brains, the best culture, the best estates, the best 
powers in the land. Suppose that the venerable 
Stephen H. Tyng had decided in his youth that 
his capacities were only worthy of the Bar or the 
Senate House. Suppose that he had entered the 
lists for wealth and fame, and climbed to the 
highest round of the ladder. When the frosts of 
fourscore were gathering on his brow, would he 
have been the happy man he has been, with the 



63 WAYSIDE SPRING^. 

benedictions of Heaven covering his gray hairs 
like a crown of light? 

We do not affirm that a man cannot serve 
Christ in any other calling than the ministry. 
But we do affirm that self should never be con- 
sulted by a true Christian in making life's choices. 
Christ's prior right to the very best is the only 
right rule. And that rule, well observed, will 
give to Christ's service the "pick" of human 
power and influence. What is left over may go 
to the inferior claims of 4 ' the things that perish. ' ' 



RIGHT AND WRONG PRAYING. 63 



RIGHT AND WRONG PRAYING. 



" Find thy happiness in God, and he shall 
give thee the askings of thy heart. " This is the 
exact rendering of the fourth verse of the thirty- 
seventh Psalm, and it throws a flood of light 
upon the important question of what is right and 
what is wrong prayer. A great deal of prayer 
is born of selfishness, and takes on the airs of 
dictation to our Heavenly Father. It is not 
humble supplication, born of a devout, submis- 
sive spirit; but it amounts to a demand. When 
we go into our bank and present a check for one 
thousand dollars, we have a right to demand that 
sum from the paying-teller, provided that sum 
stands to our credit 011 the books of the institu- 
tion. But God's promises to his children are not 
unconditional ; and we have no such spiritual 
assets standing to our credit that we may pre- 
sume to dictate to the God of wisdom and of love. 



64 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

The hackneyed illustration of ' { drawing on the 
bank of faith ' ? may be very misleading. 

What is laid down distinctly as the indispen- 
sable quality of right asking in the above quoted 
verse from the Psalm? It is a right feeling to- 
zvards God. When a soul comes into such an 
entire submissiveness towards God that it can 
honestly say, " Not as I will, but as thou wilt ;" 
when that soul delights in seeing God reign, and 
in seeing his glory advanced, then its desires will 
be so purified and so strained from the dregs of 
selfishness that they may be fearlessly poured out 
before God. In this frame of unselfish submis- 
siveness the soul may indeed come boldly to the 
throne of grace, and ask for grace suited to its 
every hour of need. The desires of God and 
the desires of a sincere Christly soul will agree. 
God loves to give to them who love to let him 
have his way. They are as willing to accept 
his u no " as his c ( yes, ' ' for they are seeking not 
their own glory, but his; they find their happi- 
ness in the chime of their own desires with the 
will of God. 



RIGHT AND WRONG PRAYING. 65 

A capital illustration of the difference between 
right and wrong desires is furnished in the biog- 
raphies of James and John. These two fisher- 
men-disciples come to our Lord and say to him, 
i 'Master, we would thou shouldst do for us 
whatsoever we shall desire. n Then bolts out 
the amazing request that he would place one of 
them on his right hand and the other on his left, 
when he set up his imperial government at Jeru- 
salem or elsewhere. Disguise it as they might, 
they were selfish office-seekers. Their dream 
was of twelve thrones, with their own in the 
centre; his foresight saw instead of this three 
crosses of agony and shame, his own in the cen- 
tre. It was not a crown, but a cup of suffering, 
that was in preparation, and he tenderly inquires 
if they were ready for that. As long as those 
two ambitious disciples found their happiness in 
self-seeking, Jesus would not and could not give 
them the askings of their hearts. 

Now, look on a few years farther, and you 
will find those two identical men uttering the 
strongest declarations in behalf of God's willing? 

9 



66 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

ness to hear and answer prayer. Their own 
hearts have been so renewed by the Holy Spirit, 
they have become so consecrated to their Mas- 
ter's service, and they are in such complete 
chime with him, that they are not afraid to come 
to him and say, "Do for us what we desire." 
Having purified and unselfish desires, they re- 
joice to discover how fully and delightfully they 
are satisfied — even more abundantly than they 
asked. So one of them (James) declares that if 
any of us lack wisdom we must ask of God, who 
giveth liberally. And then — as if he remem- 
bered what a disgracefully selfish prayer he had 
once been guilty of — he says, "Ye ask and ye 
receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may 
consume it upon your own pleasures." The 
other disciple (beloved John) exclaims, c ( Whatso- 
ever we ask we receive of him, because we keep 
his commandments, and do those things that are 
pleasing in his sight. " It is not self any longer 
that is to be pampered, but God that is honored. 
Just as soon as those two Christians found their 
supreme happiness in Christ and his cause, they 



RIGHT AND WRONG PRAYING. 6j 

received the askings of their hearts. Christ and 
they were at one. As a kind father loves to 
grant the reasonable requests of a dutiful son, so 
does our Heavenly Father love to grant right- 
eous and reasonable requests through Jesus, the 
Intercessor. 

The only c ( prayer-gauge ' ' I believe in is that 
which gauges the character of our prayers and 
the spirit in which we offer them. The very 
first essential to all right prayer is unconditional 
submissiveness to God's will. "Nevertheless, 
Father, not as I will, but as thou wilt." The 
richest blessing that prayer can bring is to bring 
us into closer communion and agreement with 
the all-holy and the all-loving One. Dr. Bush- 
nelPs illustration of the " bow-line n represents 
this most happily. A man stands in the bow of 
the boat, and draws upon a line attached to the 
shore. His pull does not move the solid ground 
one hair's breadth, but it does move his boat to- 
wards the land. So when I attach the line of 
my desire fast to the everlasting throne, faith 
does not expect to move the throne, but to draw 



68 WAYSIDK SPRINGS. 

me closer to it; and when I get more and more 
into harmony with God, I receive what my heart 
most desires. Finding my happiness in Christ, 
I am satisfied. Money, health, promotion, ease, 
and all kindred cravings, are only lawful when 
they are subordinated to the higher love; and 
the moment they get the upper hand we must 
expect to be dismissed as John and James were 
w r hen self got the upper hand in them. 

The question now arises, What are right de- 
sires ? As far as my ignorance has been enlight- 
ened by the Word, I would reply that every de- 
sire is a right one which aims only to please 
God and not self. Grace does not forbid desires, 
or reduce us to a spiritual emasculation. It en- 
courages at the same time that it purifies and 
directs our desires. Nay, the Bible exhorts us to 
4 'desire spiritual gifts. " Wisdom from above, 
strength for the hour of need, faith, the outpour- 
ing of the Holy Spirit, and kindred blessings, 
are in harmony with God's promises. These 
are the very things he has told us to covet. For 
them we are to ' c open our mouths wide ' ' and 



RIGHT AND WRONG PRAYING. 69 

our hearts; and when we do this we are filled 
unto all the fulness of God. Our Heavenly 
Father does not hand over to us the reins when 
our selfishness grasps after them. Nor does he 
allow our ignorance to be the judge of what is 
best for us. He often surprises us by sending 
something better than what we petitioned for. 
But infinitely the best thing which he can give 
us is his favor, which is life. If we find our su- 
preme happiness in this — oh, how our souls are 
purified of low, selfish, wayward, and wicked 
desires; and with what banqueting on his love, 
and with what foretastes of heaven, our best ask- 
ings are answered ! 



70 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 



THE NIGHT OF FAILURE— THE MORN- 
ING OF FAITH. 



Many of the personal incidents in the lives 
of our Lord and his disciples light up, like trans- 
parencies, with vivid spiritual instruction. One 
of these is in that most suggestive experience of 
Peter and Andrew and the two sons of Zebedee, 
when they ( ( toiled all the night ' ' with their nets 
and drew in nothing. That long night's work — 
and probably hard work too — meant failure. Pe- 
ter's sad words, "Master, we have toiled all night 
and taken nothing," might be written under the 
history of more than one human undertaking. 
Pastors sometimes write this epitaph over their 
sermons, or over a period of labor that ends in 
empty nets. Reformers — looking at the large- 
ness of outlay and expectations, and the small- 
ness of visible results — have often thrown away 
their nets in sheer despair. 



NIGHT OF FAILURE — MORNING OF FAITH. f% 

Say what we may, the fact remains that good 
men and women who toil hard in a noble under- 
taking do not always win immediate success — 
none certainly that is visible to their own eyes. 
God is a sovereign. And that signifies that God 
always means to have his own way, and not ours. 
We may man our prayer services, or our mission 
enterprises, or any other Christian undertakings, 
with a boat-load of capable workers, and just as 
sure as we begin to count our fish before we have 
caught them, we may come to shore at last with 
an empty net. u Not by might, nor by power, 
but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. ' ' Even 
Paul's arm may swing the seed-bag, and Apollos 
may guide the irrigating water with his foot, but 
God alone can give the increase. This is the les- 
son which we have to be taught again and again ; 
for our Heavenly Father always vetoes every 
claim of human independence. 

But let us turn over the leaf and see how the 
night of failure was followed by the morning of 
faith. When the sun had lighted up the blue 
waves of Galilee, and a whole navy of fishing- 



J2 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

boats are lying by the strand, Jesus appears. He 
delivers a discourse to the multitude on the beach, 
and then he bethinks him of his poor, disappoint- 
ed disciples. He always feels for us in our disap- 
pointments. Knowing what a tedious and fruit- 
less night the four fishermen had spent, and seeing 
that their nets were washed and mended, he gave 
the order, "Launch out into the deep, and let 
down your nets for a draught. ? ' Peter had a vast 
deal of human nature in him; so he frankly says, 
4 1 Master, we have toiled all night and taken noth- 
ing. ' ' Had he stopped there, he would have de- 
served a sharp rebuke. He was despondent, but 
he was not despairing. So out bolts from his 
eager tongue that noble answer, ' l Nevertheless, 
Lord, at thy word I will let down the net. ' ' Here 
is a motto for faith to nail to its masts. Faith is 
more than willing to try another venture — yes, a 
score of them — provided that it has the i ' word ' * 
of Jesus for going ahead. Christ offered to go 
with them himself. Christ gives the word of 
command, i 4 Launch out into the deep V ' Faith 
has nothing to do but obey orders and bend to the 



NIGHT OF FAILURE — MORNING OF FAITH. 73 

oar. Down goes the net. And lo ! a mighty 
swarm of fish is pouring into the net, so that the 
meshes are breaking with the strain. As busy as 
fervent Christians are in the most glorious revi- 
val are Peter and Andrew in hauling in that over- 
loaded net. Ah, faith has brought FULNESS now. 
It always does. Peter makes signal to John and 
James to bring their two smacks alongside and to 
help harvest the multitude of fish. Both boats 
are so overloaded that they are in danger of sink- 
ing. And Peter is so overwhelmed with the mi- 
raculous power of Jesus of Nazareth that he 
throws himself down at Jesus' knees, and cries 
out, u O Lord, I am a sinful man I" So grand 
does Jesus seem to him, and so mean does he seem 
to himself, that he does not feel fit to remain in 
his Lord's presence. Sweet indeed was Christ's 
reply to the awe-struck disciple, ( c Fear not, Pe- 
ter; henceforth thou shalt fish for souls; hence- 
forth thou shalt catch men." 

I have often thought that the experience of 
that night of failure and that forenoon of success 
must have been a capital lesson in the schooling 

10 



74 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

of those apostles. Just such a lesson we need 
now. We need to be taught that success does 
not depend on strong arms or strong nets or well- 
manned boats. It depends on Christ's presence 
with us in the boats, and our obeying his divine 
directions. 

Methinks that we hear his heavenly voice of 
love saying to all of us, brothers and sisters, 
" Launch out into the deep !" Leave the shal- 
low places. Seek for deep experience — deep 
study of God's precious truth- — and deeper 
draughts of the Spirit of Christ. Then we can- 
not utterly fail ; for faith overcometh, and all 
things are possible to him that believeth. At 
the end of every night spent without Christ (how- 
ever hard we toil) you may write u failure." At 
the close of every day spent with Christ, and un- 
der his oversight, you will joyfully write, " ful- 
ness of blessings. " 



CHRISTIANS FOR THE WORLD — NOT OF IT. 75 



CHRISTIANS FOR THE WORLD— NOT 

OF IT. 



TiiERE was a prodigious significance in that 
intercessory prayer of our Lord on the eve of his 
sufferings: "I pray not that thou shouldst take 
them out of the world, but that thou shouldst 
keep them from the evil." The preservation of 
the world from moral ruin depended on the pres- 
ervation of the church of God. 4 1 Ye are my wit- 
nesses, ' ' said the Master. The followers of Christ 
were to be his representatives ; the visibility of 
Christ on earth was to be in the persons, in the 
acts and lives of those whom he had redeemed to 
be a peculiar people, zealous in good works. 
They were to be a wholesome leaven, penetra- 
ting the whole mass of humanity; they were to 
be the salt of the earth, preserving society from 
putrefaction by the savor of pure godliness. ( ' Let 
your light shine!" To " shine" means some- 



76 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

thing more than the possession of a renewed 
heart or the enjoyment of an inward peace. It 
signifies the luminous reflection of Christ in char- 
acter and conduct. 

This world cannot afford to have Christians 
degenerate or become demoralised. No city can 
afford to have its gas apparatus so damaged as to 
leave its streets in darkness, or its sanitary sys- 
tem so neglected as to leave it a prey to typhoid 
fevers or cholera. Divine grace is imparted in 
order to purify its possessor; and he, in turn, is to 
do his part to purify the community. If he fails, 
the community is the loser. We who profess to 
call ourselves Christians ought to know that the 
world expects us to stand for righteousness, and 
never to compromise; to act as disinfectants and 
to maintain our savor; to hold them up, and not 
to be dragged down by them. If all the Chris- 
tianity in existence were to become bankrupt in 
character, even the scoffers themselves would be 
frightened. Sneer as they may, they expect us 
to stand by our colors. Our desertion of God 
and of the right would not only disgrace us; it 



CHRISTIANS FOR THE WORLD — NOT OF IT. 77 

would alarm even the ungodly. ( ! If this world 
is so bad with the Christian religion, " said the 
shrewd Franklin, l c what would it be without it ?' ' 
A personal incident will illustrate this secret 
reliance which the people of the world have 
upon -the people of God. A young man, who 
was a professed Christian, was seeking to win 
the heart and hand of a young lady of wealth 
and fashion. His suit did not prosper, and one 
day she said to him, ' ( You know that you are a 
church member, and I am a gay girl, very fond 
of what you call the pleasures of the world. " 
This led him to suspect that his religion was the 
obstacle to his success in winning her consent to 
marry him. He accordingly applied to the offi- 
cers of his church, which must have been very 
loose in its joints, for a release from his member- 
ship. They granted it. "Now," said he to 
her, when he met her again, "the barrier is re- 
moved. I have withdrawn from my church and 
I do not make any profession to be a Christian. ' ' 
The honest-hearted girl turned on him with dis- 
gust and horror, and said to him, "M , you 



78 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

know that I have led a frivolous life, and I feel 
too weak to resist temptations. I determined 
that I never would marry any man who was not 
strong enough to stand firm himself, and to hold 
me up also. I said what I did just to try you; 
and, if you have not principle enough to stick to 
your faith, you have not principle enough to be 
my husband. Let me never see you again. ? ' 

Whether this incident be actual or not, the 
lesson it teaches is beyond dispute. The world 
expects Christians to stand by their colors; when 
we desert them, we not only dishonor our Master 
and ourselves, but we disappoint the world. 
Christ's church never will save the world by sec- 
ularizing itself or surrendering its strict princi- 
ples of loyalty to whatever is right and pure and 
holy. Conformity to the world will never con- 
vert it. ' ' Come out and be ye separate, ' } saith 
the Lord, u and touch no unclean thing. " Even 
if the world could succeed in bringing the church 
down to its own standard of opinion and practice, 
it would only work its own moral destruction. 
It would extinguish the light-houses which illu- 



CHRISTIANS FOR THE WORLD — NOT OF IT. 79 

mine its own channels ; it would destroy the 
spiritual leaven which Christ has ordained and 
prepared to save human society from corrup- 
tion. 

The demand of this time is not to lower the 
claims of God, but to elevate them; not to weak- 
en the authority of divine inspiration, but to re- 
inforce it ; not to unloose obligations to Bible 
creeds, but to tighten ; not to accommodate Chris- 
tianity to the thought and fashion of the times, 
but to keep it stoutly and steadily up to its prim- 
itive standards. We must stand fast not only to 
the faith once delivered to the saints, but to the 
practices enjoined in God's Word. The church 
of this day is in no danger of excessive Puritan- 
ism. The peril is in the opposite direction. 
Conformity to the world is weakening the back- 
bone of the church, and thus far diminishing its 
power to lift the world up towards God. "If 
thou wouldst pull a man out of a pit," said 
quaint old Philip Henry, "thou must have a 
good foothold, or else he will pull thee in." 

In no direction should Christians make their 



80 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

testimony more emphatic than in the line of 
righteous living. The sin of modern civilization 
has been well described as 4 ! making more of con- 
dition than it does of character, ' ' The very es- 
sence of Bible religion is to make character 
everything, and conduct the test and evidence of 
character. " By their fruits ye shall know 
them ;' ' make the tree good and the fruits shall 
be like it. This is the core of Christ's practical 
teachings. He ' 4 gave himself for us, that he 
might redeem us from all iniquity and purify 
unto himself a peculiar people. ' ' The Revised 
Version has it - ' that he might purify unto him- 
self a people for his own possession." The gist 
of this is that Christ owns us, and not the world. 
Our first duty is to him, and really this is the 
most effectual way of serving them. Our loyal- 
ty to Christ is to be the world's salvation. The 
moment we betray him we betray them and emp- 
ty ourselves of all reforming and regenerating 
power. When the salt has lost its savor it is 
thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out 
and trodden under foot of men. When a Chris- 



CHRISTIANS FOR THE WORLD — NOT OF IT. 8l 

tian so conducts himself as to be despised by his 
unconverted neighbors, he inflicts upon them an 
incalculable injury. He confirms them in unbe- 
lief. He brings Christianity into contempt. He 
poisons the well from which they ought to draw 
good influences. "Ye are my witnesses," said 
our loving Lord and Master; but what if the wit- 
nesses swear falsely f 

In whatever direction we apply it, the fact 
remains clear that society needs a strict, pure, 
honest, self-denying, godly-minded church. Our 
politics need a chloride of lime; and Christian 
citizens ought to engage in civil affairs, not to 
become tainted themselves, but to purify civil 
life. To a right-minded Christian a ballot is a 
trust, and public office is a stewardship for God. 
The most grievous calamity that could happen 
to this country would be a divorce of practical 
Christianity from its politics. Conscience is 
more to this republic than all its army or navy, 
or millions of Government bonds. 

In commerce and trade Christianity has its 
indispensable place, and God's people their sphere 

ii 



82 WAYSIDK SPRINGS. 

of usefulness. The Golden Rule is the true 
Christian's yardstick; commerce becomes a cheat 
if it is disused or broken. When a church mem- 
ber defaults or turns swindler, he repeats the sin 
of Judas. Christ is betrayed, and men's faith in 
Bible integrity is so far shattered. A Christian 
merchant, manufacturer, or mechanic has a call 
to serve Christ and save his fellow-men as much 
as any gospel minister. Every ounce of leaven 
has its place. 

Social life, with increase of wealth, has a 
trend towards demoralization. Luxury ener- 
vates. Popular amusements become sensualized 
and offer their temptations to the church. u Be 
ye not conformed to the world ? ' applies to the 
stage, the ball-room, the wine-cup, and to every- 
thing that would turn God's earth into a " Vani- 
ty Fair. ' ' Conformity to the world amounts, in 
the end, to more than the corruption of Christ's 
church. It puts out the light which Christ kin- 
dled; it destroys the very leaven which he has 
prepared to purify and sweeten and save a 
u world lying in wickedness." 



A SERMON AIX THE WEEK. 83 



A SERMON AI4L, THE WEEK. 



( c Why do you go to hear Dr. A preach ? 

He is not a brilliant preacher." " Very true," 
was the sensible reply; " I know that his pulpit 
performances are not brilliant, but his life is a 
sermon to me all the week." With a minister, 
as much as with the private Christian, character 
tells. More than one pulpit orator has destroyed 
the effect of his discourses by his self-seeking 
egotism, or his unscrupulous practices, or his 
overbearing temper, or some other very unchris- 
tian trait. On the other hand, full one-half of 
the power of some eminent pastors lies in their 
pure, unblemished piety. Everybody believes 
in them. Their unselfish humility would silence 
a scoffer. Good as they are in the pulpit, they 
are still better out of it. Their life is eloquent 
from Monday morning to Saturday night. 

What is true of the ministry is equally true of 



84 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

the laity. An honest, consistent, godly character 
is a " sermon all the week." Nay, it is Christ's 
own preaching ; for Christ liveth in such a be- 
liever, and shines out from him. This good 
man's fruits are Christ's fruits, just as much as 
the big, luscious grapes are the outcome of a 
' l Hamburg ' ' vine. The credit does not belong 
to the grapes so much as it belongs to the vine 
which yields such superb fruit. Our divine Lord 
recognised this when he said that herein was he 
glorified when his disciples bore much fruit. 

The living Christian — pure of heart and un- 
spotted by the world — is the best preacher of the 
gospel in these days. And it is just from the 
lack of this gospel salt that society suffers cor- 
ruption and decay. Revivals and conversions 
are painfully few. The revival that is most ur- 
gently needed is a revival of practical godliness. 
Sunday preaching is not enough ; we want more 
4 ' sermons all through the week. ' ' 

L,et us go down to the core. The only basis 
of good character is a renewed heart, a heart in 
which Jesus Christ lives by his divine Spirit, a 



A SERMON ALI* THE WEEK. 85 

heart which is in the habit of obeying Christ's 
commandments. Such a man draws his mo- 
tives of action from his deep, abiding love to 
Jesus. Up from the very roots comes his daily 
devotion to those things which are pure and 
honest and lovely and of good report. Rooted 
into Christ, he is not easily shaken. He does 
not bend to trickery or yield to temptation. The 
world cannot move such a man. What cares he 
for its changing, frivolous fashions ; his fashion 
is to do the will of his holy Master. 

A spiritual drought does not dry up such a 
Christian. Some church members are only flour- 
ishing during the heavy rains of a revival sea- 
son ; the rest of the year they are as brown and 
barren as the plains of Nevada. If their pas- 
tors grow sick and tired of such fitful professors, 
how patient must their Lord be to endure them 
at all ! 

Let the reader of this volume examine him- 
self, or herself, in the light of conscience and 
God's Word. Perhaps you are wondering why 
so few are converted, and why the church has 



86 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

so little power, and why the attendance upon 
God's house is so scanty, and the state of reli- 
gion is so low. The reason is that more of the 
preaching of practice is needed all through the 
week. And none of us can rise higher before the 
world than the fountain-head in our own hearts. 
" O God, renew within me a right spirit I" 



THE LILY-WORK ON THE PILLARS. 87 



THE ULY-WORK ON THE PILLARS. 



ThERE were two massive pillars in the porch 
of Solomon's Temple which bore the names of 
"Jachin" and "Boas." One name signifies 
u He will establish," and the other signifies u In 
strength. " The two together are admirable em- 
blems of solid goodness of character. Not hol- 
low, not easily thrown off their base, and of un- 
decaying material, they typify the firmness and 
the strength of the man who is immovably fixed, 
trusting on the Lord. But, while these two pil- 
lars were made strong, they were also made orna- 
mental; for they were inwreathed with delicate 
chains of carved pomegranates, and "upon the 
capitals of the pillars was lily-work." Thus are 
strength and beauty to be combined in every 
well-developed Christian character. 

Beauty is that combination of harmony in 
color or in form that gives pleasure to the eye of 



88 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

the beholder. One of the profoundest prayers in 
the Bible is the prayer that the beauty of the 
Lord our God may be upon us. One of the rich- 
est promises is that c c the meek will He beautify 
with salvation," and the loftiest ideal set before 
us is " the beauty of holiness. n When our eyes 
gaze upon our enthroned Saviour in his celestial 
splendors, then shall they "see the King in his 
beauty." It was the ineffable perfection of Jesus 
of Nazareth which not only constitutes the glory 
of the New Testament, but furnishes the most 
unanswerable argument for the essential divinity 
that was clothed in human form. 

Christ enjoined upon every one of his disci- 
ples to study him, to learn of him, and to imitate 
his example. A true Christian is the representa- 
tive of Christ in this world — the only embodiment 
of gospel teaching and influences that is presented 
in human society. How vitally important is it, 
then, that those of us who profess and call our- 
selves Christians should make our Christianity 
attractive ! Multitudes of people know very little 
and think very little about the L^ord Jesus; nearly 



the: lily-work on thk pillars. 89 

all the ideas they get of his religion is what they 
see in those who profess it, and their eyes are as 
sharp as those of a lynx to discover whether their 
neighbor is one whit the better for his religion. 
I will venture to say that the life of William E. 
Dodge was the most eloquent sermon in behalf of 
practical Christianity which has been presented 
in this community lately. It was worth many a 
volume of ingenious Apologetics to refute infi- 
delity and silence the gainsayers. 

But not all the solid piety is as attractive as 
it might be made. There is many a Jachin and 
a Boaz that has not much lily-work about his 
harsh and repulsive character. Of course we do 
not refer to such disgraceful delinquencies as 
some church members are guilty of, who defraud 
their neighbors, or steal trust funds, or practise 
knaveries in politics, or befoul themselves with 
sensual excesses. Such members of the flock do 
not wear a fleece bi£ enough to hide the wolf. 
But we might instance thousands of genuine 
Christians, honest at heart and sincere in their 
professions, who would be wonderfully improved 

12 



90 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

by lopping off some of their unsightly branches. 

Egotistical brother A would look better in 

the eyes of his neighbors if he had not so many 

"I's" of his own. Brother B is devout in 

his prayers, but his clerks and his employes 
would enjoy hearing them better if he did not 
treat them as if they were pack-mules. Mrs. 

C is indefatigable in the Ladies' Benevolent 

Union; but her ill-conditioned children look as 
if they needed a Dorcas Society at home. And 
so we might go through the alphabet with de- 
scriptions of those whom the grace of God has 
converted, but they have not added many of the 
graces of ' ' lily- work ' ' to their religious construc- 
tions. 

None of us need travel a mile to find some un- 
questionable Christians who sour their religion 
with censoriousness. Grant that their standard 
is high and exacting; but who made them judges 
over their neighbors? After an hour's talk with 
them, you acquire an insensible prejudice against 
some of the best people in your community. 
Such Christians are in God's orchard; but they 



THE UI.Y-WORK ON THE PILARS. 91 

bear crab apples. Everybody respects their sin- 
cerity, both in creed and conduct; yet nobody 
loves them. I once had a venerable and most 
godly-minded member of my church who never 
did a very wrong act to my knowledge. I am 
sorry to say that he scarcely ever did a pleasant 
one. There was a good, sound nut in that chest- 
nut-burr; but no one liked to prick his fingers in 
coming at it. So the rugged, honest old man 
(who in a humble way reminded me of Carlyle) 
was left to go on his way to heaven, working 
and praying and scolding as he went stubbornly 
along; and even the children in the street were 
almost afraid to speak to him. I suppose he has 
grown mellower since he passed into the genial 
atmosphere of the better world. One of the most 
blessed things about heaven is that the best and 
holiest who are admitted there will have left 
every disagreeable thing about them outside the 
gates. 

Sanctification is a genuine and gracious pro- 
cess, and it never reaches completeness in this 
life. This should make us tolerant and charita- 



92 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

ble towards the infirmities of sincere followers of 
our Master. Yet it should never excuse our own 
wilful adherence to words, or practices, or traits 
of character which disfigure our religion and mar 
our influence. In building a character for eter- 
nity we should regard its impression on our fel- 
low-men ; we are as much bound to ornament it 
with the ' c lily-work n as we are to make the 
structure solid and enduring. An attractive 
Christian is the one who hits the most nearly 
that golden mean between pliant laxities on the 
one hand and severe or sanctimonious harshness 
on the other hand. He is strict, but not censo- 
rious. He is sound, and yet sweet and mellow, 
as one who dwells much in the sunshine of 
Christ's countenance. He never incurs con- 
tempt by compromising with wrong, nor does he 
provoke others to dislike of him by doing right 
in a very harsh or hateful or bigoted fashion. 

Our Master is our model. What marvellous 
lily-work of gentleness, forbearance, and unself- 
ish love adorned the massive divinity of that 
life ! What he was, we, in our imperfect meas- 



THE LIIvY-WORK ON THE PILLARS. 93 

ure, should pray and strive after. Study Jesus, 
brethren. Get your souls saturated with his 
spirit. His grace imparted to you and his ex- 
ample imitated can turn deformity into beauty, 
and adorn your lives with whatsoever things are 
true and honest and lovely and of good report. 
He that winneth souls is wise. But if we would 
win the careless and the godless to our Saviour, 
we must make our daily religion more winsome. 



94 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 



STANDING THE STRAIN. 



How often do we ever hear a sermon or ever 
think about poor Rizpah ? There she sits — in 
the sacred story — for five long, weary months 
upon the sackcloth spread on the rock of Gibeah. 
The noonday sun pours down its heats upon her 
head, and the midnight its chilling dews, but 
they cannot drive her from her steady vigil be- 
side the forms of her two crucified sons. From 
the early harvests of April to the early rains of 
October she suffers neither the birds of the air 
to assail them by day, nor the beasts of the field 
by night. The wayfarers by the northern road 
from Jerusalem grow accustomed to the strange, 
sad spectacle of that heart-broken mother guard- 
ing from vulture and jackal the remains of her 
beautiful Mephibosheth and Armoni. 

Those two youths were crucified ; there seems 
but little doubt of that. They were sacrificed to 



STANDING THK STRAIN. 95 

appease the wrath of the Gibeonites for the cruel- 
ties once practised upon them by the hands of 
their father Saul. If we could ask that long- 
enduring woman, Rizpah, what enabled her to 
stand those five months of severe strain, her an- 
swer would be in one single word, " Love." It 
was the quenchless affection of a true mother's 
heart. It transcends every other earth-born affec- 
tion. It can neither be " chilled by selfishness, 
nor daunted by danger, nor weakened by worth- 
lessness, nor stifled by ingratitude." This was 
the chord that bound Rizpah to that long vigil 
on the desolate rock and stood the tremendous 
strain. 

There is a lesson for every Christian in this 
touching episode of the ( ( mater dolorosa ' ' on the 
rock of Gibeah. There is only one principle in 
the human heart which can withstand the severe 
strain which the daily wear and tear of tempta- 
tion and trial bring upon us. It is love for yesus. 
Our heart must be in our religion, and our reli- 
gion in our heart, or else it is a most toilsome 
drudgery or an irksome hypocrisy. This is the 



96 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

secret reason why so many church members shirk 
their duties. There is no genuine, long-enduring 
love of their crucified Master at the core of the 
heart. So their religion is toil and task-work. 
The Bible is taken as a medicine, and not de- 
voured as honey. There must be a constant 
baiting and bribing by attractions of fine preach- 
ing and fine music, or else the Sabbath service 
would be a sort of compulsory penance. As it 
is, about every rainy Sunday brings doubt and 
disgrace upon full one-half of the professed piety 
of the land. A man in whose soul love for Jesus 
rings no bell of devotion is always glad of 'an ex- 
cuse to shirk the sanctuary on a disagreeable day. 
Money-giving for Christ's cause is to such a pro- 
fessor an orthodox larceny; he flings his contri- 
bution at the box grudgingly, as if he would say, 
u There it is, since you must have it; when will 
these everlasting calls be done with?" The 
whole routine of external service in the name of 
religion is gone through slavishly, perfunctorily, 
and heartlessly, as if the lash of an overseer was 
brandished over the head. Such Christianity is 



STANDING THE STRAIN. 97 

Christ less. There is no joy and no power in it, 
and when a severe strain of temptation comes 
on its possessor, it snaps like a thread, and leaves 
him to a terrible fall. The secret of every case 
of bad backsliding during the past year has been 
the want of staying power; and that staying 
power is based solely on the indwelling of Christ 
and a supreme love for him. 

Love of Jesus is essential Christianity. It 
endureth all things; it never faileth. No priva- 
tions can starve it, and no burdens can break it 
down. It keeps the heart of the frontier mis- 
sionary warm amid the snows of the Rocky 
Mountains, and gives sweetness to the crust 
which the overworked seamstress eats in her 
lonely lodging — disdaining the wages of sin. It 
is the core of all the piety which Christ loves to 
look at. It is the only cure also of the reigning 
worldliness and covetousness and fashion-wor- 
ship which have made such spiritual havoc in 
too many churches. 

The test-question for every Christian life is, 
Have I in my inmost heart a love of Jesus strong 

13 



98 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

enough to stand the strain ? My religions profes- 
sion has lost its novelty; will it hold out? Temp- 
tations will come; shall I conquer them or break? 
Christ demands constant loyalty ; can I be true 
to him ? Am I as ready to stand watch day and 
night to protect his honor as poor Rizpah was to 
protect the lifeless forms of her beloved from the 
birds and the beasts? These are the questions 
that touch the very marrow of our religion. 
They underlie all our heart-life, our church-life, 
and the very existence of every work of self-de- 
nying charity. 

My brother, there is only one way to be a 
staying Christian, a thorough soul-saving Chris- 
tian. It is to get the heart full of Jesus — so full 
that the world and the lusts of the flesh and the 
devil can get no foothold. Whether you are 
a pastor longing for a fresh blessing on your 
flock, or a Sabbath-school teacher set in charge 
of young immortals, or a parent guarding the 
fireside fold, or a philanthropist toiling for the 
ignorant, the suffering, and the lost, you need 
this ever-living mainstay and inspiration. If you 



STANDING THE STRAIN. 99 

only love Jesus, you will love to live for him and 
to labor for him. Jacob toiled seven years faith- 
fully for Rachel, and they seemed unto him but 
a few days, for the love which he had to the 
beautiful maiden in the fields of Laban. Love's 
labors "were light. Would you then be a light- 
some, joyous laborer in Christ's vineyard ? Get 
your heart full of him. Would you be a power 
in your church ? Get the heart full of Jesus. 
Would you be kept safe from backsliding ? Then 
keep yourself in the love of your Saviour. Put 
that master-affection so deep down that it shall 
underlie all selfishness; so deep that the frosts of 
the current skepticism cannot reach it; so deep 
that the frictions of daily life cannot wear upon 
it ; so deep that the power of temptation cannot 
touch it ; so deep that even when old age dries 
tip the other affections of our nature, this undy- 
ing love shall flow like an artesian well. 

Let us stop then occasionally and take one 
look at that steadfast Rizpah watching beside the 
crosses of her crucified sons. She stood the strain^ 
until her noble constancy won the king's eye and 



IOO WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

secured their honorable burial. There is an infi- 
nitely holier cross, an infinitely diviner Sacrifice 
that demands our steadfast loyalty. If a mother's 
love could endure so much, what will not the love 
of a redeemed soul bear for its Redeemer ? Oh, for 
a fresh baptism of this mighty love — a fresh and 
a full inpouring, so that no accursed spirit of the 
world, no temptation, no self-indulgence, no, nor 
any other creature, shall be able to separate us 
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our 
Lord ! 



TURNING WINTER INTO SPRING. IOI 



TURNING WINTER INTO SPRING. 



At the midwinter season many people fall, 
naturally, into the error that the sun emits less 
heat than during the midsummer. But while we 
are shivering with the cold, the fact is that the 
mighty furnace of the sun is glowing with the 
same heat as in July — a heat so intense that ev- 
ery square foot of its vast surface gives off enough 
energy to drive the colossal engine of the Centen- 
nial exhibition — a heat that, concentrated, would 
melt a column of ice fifty miles in diameter as fast 
as it shot towards the sun, even though it flew 
with the speed of light ! The simple reason why 
we all shiver in February is that our globe lies at 
another angle towards the solar furnace, and only 
receives its indirect radiations. The change is in 
our position. 

This astronomic fact gives a new freshness 
and vividness to that prayer of the Psalmist : 



102 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

( ' Turn us, O God, and cause thy face to shine, 
and we shall be saved." God's love is inex- 
haustible and unchangeable. He is the same 
yesterday, to-day, and for ever. The reason why 
a Christian is cold, or why a church gets frozen 
up, is that they have swung off from God, and 
put themselves into the same position towards 
him that our globe has towards the winter sun. 
When a Christian backslides from duty, he 
throws himself out of the sunlight of God's 
countenance. His spiritual winter is of his own 
making. So with an ice-bound church, in which 
formality and fashion and frigidity have so low- 
ered the spiritual temperature that the plants of 
grace are frostbitten. Sermons lie like icicles 
upon its floor; its prayer-room becomes a refrige- 
rator, and no poor sinner is ever attracted in 
thither to be warmed and melted. This is hard- 
ly a caricature of those churches in which con- 
versions have sunk down to zero. 

The first duty of a cold Christian, or a church 
of cold Christians, is to recognize and confess a 
wrong position towards God. He that never 



TURNING WINTER INTO SPRING. 103 

mourns never mends. He who coveretli his sins 
must take the consequences. But when we are 
ready to say and do say, c c O God ! I have wan- 
dered away from thee; I have fled from thy face 
into the cold atmosphere of worldliness and self- 
ishness and unbelief; help me to turn from my 
backslidings;" when our hearts utter this prayer, 
there is the first step taken towards recovery. 
Such an honest, contrite confession as this, made 
without any attempt at concealment or excuse, 
would be the harbinger of a revival in scores of 
churches to-day. God never blesses one of his 
children while in an attitude of disobedience. 
The change needed is not a change of our cir- 
cumstances, although we often make a scapegoat 
of the word and talk about ( ' our unfavorable cir- 
cumstances. n The change demanded is one of 
character and conduct. The love of the world — 
the silly ambition to walk in a vain show — and 
that "big house-devil" of self-indulgence, have 
drawn the soul away from Christ. ( ' He that is 
nearest to me is nearest to the fire, ' ? is one of the 
traditional utterances of our L,ord, not reported 



104 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

by the evangelists. Whether Christ ever uttered 
this or not, it is undeniable that he who is farthest 
from him is the most frozen and lifeless. 

The first step, then, is a reconversion. The 
word ' ( conversion ' ' signifies a turning from sin 
to the Saviour. Reconversion is not regenera- 
tion, for the Bible never speaks of such a thing 
as being u born again" a great many times. Re- 
conversion means simply the return of a backsli- 
ding Christian to God and to the path of forsa- 
ken duties. Peter was thus reconverted after his 
shameful fall in Pilate's judgment-hall. The very 
gist of the prayer, "Turn us, O God," is that the 
Holy Spirit will move us with mighty power, 
and so work in us that we shall return to the Lord 
and begin a new style of holy living. As Spur- 
geon pithily puts it, u All will come right when 
we are right. ' ' All will come right with me the 
moment that I get into the right position towards 
God. All will come right with the minister's 
sermons, and with the prayer-meetings and with 
the Sabbath-school; a new converting power will 
descend into the church just as soon as it swings 



TURNING WINTER INTO SPRING. 105 

back from the polar regions of sin into the light 
of God's countenance. 

There is only one way by which nature turns 
winter into spring; it is by bringing the face of 
the eart«h into a new position towards the sun- 
rays. Then the snow-banks vanish, the seeds 
sprout, the grass peeps out, the buds open, and 
the sun reneweth the face of the year. Even so 
there is but one way to be delivered from a spir- 
itual winter which blights our graces and kills 
all spiritual activity. It is by coming back to 
God so that his face may shine upon us. Then 
we shall walk in the broad, full light of his coun- 
tenance without stumbling. Then our affections 
will thaw out, and, with some Christians, one of 
the first symptoms will be seen in the opened 
purse. Then tongues long frozen up will begin 
to be heard in the prayer-meeting. A new quick- 
ening power will descend and make the buried 
seeds of gospel truth to start up into the awaken- 
ing and conversion of souls. God's face, God's 
favor will accomplish all this and divers other rich 
and wonderful blessings. In short, we shall be saved. 

H 



106 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

Christians will be saved from the guilt of neg- 
lected duty. We shall be saved from the deadly 
malaria of the world, and saved from the domin- 
ion of the adversary. The impenitent will be 
reached, and so turned from the error of their 
ways as to save their souls from death eternal. 
This, my dear brethren, is the urgent, imperative 
need of the hour — even a thorough, hearty turn- 
ing back into the full bla^e and light and heat of 
God's face. Oh, what a revival that will bring ! 
Faithless praying and fruitless preaching will dis- 
appear like ice in April. God will cause his face 
to shine upon us and restore unto us the joys of 
his salvation. Then shall transgressors be taught 
his ways, and sinners (both in the church and out 
of it) be converted to the L,ord. The winter will 
be past and gone, and the time of the singing of 
souls will come again. 



ONE BY ONE. 107 



ONE BY ONE. 



When a lad I used to join in the apple-gath- 
erings in the ripe month of October. The com- 
mon fruit, which was destined to the cider-press 
or the swine, was shaken from the trees, and no 
amount of bruising did any harm. But the choice 
pippins and Spitzenbergs, which were destined 
for the apple-bins, were carefully picked by hand. 
Those were gathered one by one; we intended 
that they should keep through the winter. 

This process illustrates the only effectual 
method for the conversion of souls. i ( Ye shall 
be gathered one by one," was the declaration 
made to God's people in the olden time. The 
Lord declares that in the time of the purification 
and restoration of Israel he would gather in his 
grain seed by seed; each seed should be tested, 
and not a single one overlooked, or one genuine 
kernel be lost. This emphasises the fact that in 



108 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

God's sight there is no such thing as " the 
masses." God sees only individuals ; every one 
unlike every other, and every one the possessor 
of an immortal soul. Guilt is an individual 
thing appertaining to a personal conscience; 
when a nation sins, or when a church goes 
astray, it simply means that there are a great 
many personal sinners. Nor are sinners saved 
by regiments. When three thousand were con- 
verted in a single day at Jerusalem, each one 
repented for himself, each one came into per- 
sonal union with the risen Christ. 

When engaged in earnest efforts for the con- 
version of souls, it is vitally important for Chris- 
tians to study and imitate the example of Jesus 
and his apostles. A very large portion of 
Christ's inspired biography is occupied by his 
personal interviews — with a guilty woman by a 
well, with a publican by the wayside, with a 
young ruler, with a blind beggar, or with a Nic- 
odemus in a private room. To the Son of God, 
as to every faithful gospel minister, ojie soul was 
a great audience. The single extended discourse 



ONE BY ONK. IOg 

which Christ delivered was aimed at every audi- 
tor before him. 

No fact is more patent on the face of the 
book of the Acts than that it is the record chiefly 
of individual labors for the conversion or the 
spiritual training of individuals. Those first 
Christians were men and women who understood 
thoroughly their personal responsibility and the 
power of personal effort. Find, if you can, the 
appointment of a single " committee" in the 
book of the Acts. Seven men were indeed des- 
ignated to the work of dispensing charities to 
the poor; but this was done in order to release 
the others for personal labor in declaring the 
word of life. Very little is said about church 
organizations. Nothing was allowed to keep 
man from man — the individual believer from the 
individual sinner. Peter goes right after Corne- 
lius; Philip talks directly to Queen Candace's 
treasurer; Aquila and Priscilla have a great 
Bible-class in the person of eloquent Apollos; 
and Dorcas is a sewing-society in herself. Amid 
all the Conventions and " Union meetings" and 



IIO WAYSIDK SPRINGS. 

endless talk about revivals, is there not danger 
that each Christian my forget that he or she is 
the bearer of one lamp ? And if that lamp be 
well filled with grace, and its light be lovingly 
thrown on one sinner's path, more good will be 
accomplished than by a whole torchlight proces- 
sion out on parade. A crowd is often in the 
way when a soul is to be rescued. Christ led a 
deaf man out of the crowd when he wished to 
deal with him alone. Those early Christians 
wrought wonders for God and dying humanity, 
but they accomplished them by the simple direct 
method — every man to his man. Personal holi- 
ness made each worker a partner with the Om- 
nipotent Jesus. 

As I recall my own ministerial experience, I 
can testify that nearly all the converting work 
done has been by personal contact with souls. 
For example, I once recognized in the congrega- 
tion a new-comer, and at my first visit to his 
house was strongly drawn to him as a very noble- 
hearted, manly character. A long talk with him 
seemed to produce little impression; but before I 



ONE BY ONE. Ill 

left lie took me up stairs to see his three or four 
rosy children in their cribs. As we stood look- 
ing at the sleeping cherubs, I said to him, "My 
friend, what sort of a father are you going to be 
to these children ? Are you going to lead them 
towards heaven, or — the other way?" That 
arrow lodged. At our next communion season 
he was at the Master's table, and he soon became 
a most useful officer in the church. There is an 
unbolted door in about everybody's heart, if we 
will only ask God to show us where to find it. 

Every pastor, and every successful Sunday- 
school teacher will recall similar experiences of 
personal interviews that did the business. Har- 
lan Page never attempted any other method than 
hand-picking. Even Mr. Moody has often told 
me that his most effective work is done in the 
inquiry-room, where he deals with souls one by 
one. The true way to insure conversions in our 
congregations is for individual Christians (you y 
for instance) to give themselves afresh to Jesus, 
and then go after some one soul that is within 
the reach of their influence. Be on the watch 



112 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

for opportunities. Do a personal kindness, or 
make a personal visit to open the way to the 
heart's door. Sometimes a kind, faithful letter 
is blessed to a soul's awakening. A single sen- 
tence, kindly spoken to him in the street, brought 
one of my neighbors to the Saviour. Heaven 
has its myriads of saved sinners; but they were 
gathered there one by one. 

I,et me also remind those Christians who de- 
sire to make this opening year a time for growth 
in godliness, that they may commit the serious 
mistake of trying to grow u by wholesale." A 
vague desire to be better, stronger, holier, will 
come to nothing. Character is built, like the 
walls of an edifice, by laying one stone upon an- 
other. I,ay hold of some single fault and mend 
it. Put the knife with God's help to some ugly 
besetting sin. Stop that one leak that has let 
so much foul bilge-water into your soul. Put 
into practice some long-neglected duty. The 
first step to improvement with one person was to 
banish his decanters; with another, to discon- 
tinue his secular paper on Sunday morning; with 



ONE BY CXNE. 113 

another, to ask the pardon of an injured friend; 
with another, to go after some street Arabs and 
take them to a mission-school. He can never be 
rich towards God who despises a pennyworth of 
true piety. Holiness is just living aright in the 
least things as well as the greatest; for graces 
can only be gathered one by one. 

" I count this thing to be grandly true, 

That a righteous deed is a step towards God, 
Lifting the soul from its common clod 
To a purer air and a clearer view. 

" Heaven is not reached by a single bound, 
But we build the ladder by which we rise 
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, 
And we mount to its summit round by round." 



*5 



114 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 



GLEANING FOR CHRIST. 



Ruth, the Moabitess, was in many respects a 
model for our American maidens. Too industri- 
ous to be ashamed of honest work — too indepen- 
dent to rely on her poor mother for her daily 
bread — she goes out to the barley-field to glean 
after the reapers. She knows that it is the cus- 
tom of the country to leave some stalks of corn 
for the poor to gather. Boaz also commands his 
harvesters to "let fall so#ie of the handfuls on 
purpose for her." The wisest of all charities is 
that which helps the poor to help themselves. 
Ruth has a brave heart and nimble fingers, does 
not mind a backache or a scratch of her fingers 
among the brambles ; and at sunset she comes 
home to her mother with an ephah of barley. 
Proud mother is Naomi as she inquires of the 
busy-fingered girl, ( ( Where hast thou gleaned to- 
day ?» 



GLEANING FOR CHRIST. T15 

This is a fitting question for every Christian 
on a Sabbath evening. Equally fit is it for every 
Sunday-school teacher at the close of his or her 
day's work. All genuine Bible-study is glean- 
ing. Some of the most nutritious and soul- 
strengthening truths are unexpected discoveries. 
We come upon them just where we did not ex- 
pect to find them. Right in the midst of a cata- 
logue of names in the fourth chapter of Chroni- 
cles we light upon the word u Jabe2, n the child 
who was born in sorrow, but proved to be a sun- 
shine and a blessing. That little stroke of Bible 
history has been a mine of spiritual instruction 
to many a child of God. There is good gleaning 
too, in the book of Leviticus — which some care- 
less people set down as a mere catalogue of Jew- 
ish upholsteries. Such Bible explorers as Bonar 
and Arnot and Bushnell and Moody will bring 
you an ' ' ephah of barley ' ' out of the neglected 
corners of God's wonderful grain-field. He lets 
fall many a handful for the benefit of those who 
believe that every line in their Bibles is inspired, 
and was written for a purpose. The ministers 



Il6 WAYSIDK SPRINGS. 

who never wear out are the men who are never 
afraid of a backache in searching for a fresh 
truth. 

Genuine work for the ingathering of souls is 
like Ruth's work in her kinsman's barley-field. 
It may be described by four P's. In the first place 
it is patient. No pastor or Sunday-school teach- 
er is fit for his post unless he has rubbed the word 
"can't" out of his vocabulary. The hardest 
part of all Christian work is to toil a great while 
with little or no result. Captain Buford at West 
Point broke off the trunnion of a cannon by re- 
peated blows of a hammer. If there had been 
one stroke the less, the iron would not have 
yielded. It takes a long hammering to break 
some hearts, and to beat some vital truths into 
some dull consciences. Unless Ruth had been 
content to pick up one spear at a time she never 
would have got her bag of barley. 

2. The next qualification for a good gleaner 
is to be painstaking. Ralph Wells will find a 
hundred kernels of golden grain in a passage 
which a careless reader will pronounce as empty 



GLEANING FOR CHRIST. 11/ 

as the east wind. He will spare no pains either 
to win some young street Arab who was regarded 
as a fair candidate for the police station. Christ 
Jesus took a long journey into the coast of Tyre 
and Sidon, just to bring a blessing to one poor 
woman. What pains he took with that bigoted 
and loose-principled woman of Sychar, until he 
had probed her heart to the core. The longest 
of all his recorded conversations was with a per- 
son whom his disciples would disdain to notice. 
If Christians would exercise their ingenuity and 
set themselves resolutely to work, as Harlan Page 
did, for the conversion of individual souls, our 
churches might be doubled every year. 

3. All good work comes to nothing which is 
given up when half done. If Harlan Page had 
stopped that winter evening talk with young E. 

H at the corner of the street before his young 

friend surrendered to Christ, then that soul might 
have lost the precious gift of eternal life, and 
New York lost one of its best pastors. " Why 
do you tell that boy the same thing twenty 
times ?" " Because," replied Susannah Wesley, 



Il8 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

"the other nineteen times will go for nothing 
unless the twentieth time makes the impression." 
God's Spirit is wonderfully persevering in the 
conversion and discipline of souls. It required a 
long process to build up such a man as Paul. A 
great sculptor never begrudges the chisel strokes 
which fit his "Eves" and "Greek Slaves" to 
shine in the gallery of masterpieces. A Chris- 
tian is carving for eternity. 

4. But no patience, and no painstaking and 
persevering labor for Jesus will secure the result 
without the gift of the knees. Prayer brings 
God to our aid, and then the victory is sure. 
From Paul's day to this, the men and women 
who bring in the big sheaves have been c c instant 
in prayer." Out of the hardest fields and the 
thorniest experiences a prayerful soul will gather 
the "ephah" for God's granaries. Brother! sis- 
ter ! have you attained to the four P's in your 
spiritual training? Then, at the close of life's 
toils, when you stand up for the final reckoning, 
you will not be afraid to meet the question, 
"What have you gleaned to-day?" 



SEEKING AFTER HOLINESS 119 



SEEKING AFTER HOLINESS. 



The word holiness is formed from holy, 
which signifies whole, sound, entire. Holiness 
is equivalent to the old Saxon word wholth or 
health; therefore a holy person is one who has 
been healed, and is in a sound spiritual con- 
dition. The real disease that afflicts and maims 
and torments and kills is sin. Holiness is the 
recovery from the controlling and deadly power 
of this disease. But as we never yet saw any 
one so perfectly healthy as never to feel an ache 
or a pain, so we need not expect here to be be- 
yond the smart of inward sinfulness of desire — 
the pain of much conscious wrong-doing, and 
the mortifying sense of incompleteness and 
shortcoming. The very expression which Paul 
employs, u ye are complete in Him," means, " ye 
are made full in Him." It refers to complete- 



120 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

ness of provision in Christ, and not to any com- 
pleteness of performance or character in us. 

Shall we seek after holiness? Is there any 
encouragement to do this? Yes; not only en- 
couragement as strong as the love of Jesus can 
make it, but obligation also. 

A holy Christian is one who is in good 
health. The heart has been delivered from the 
supreme control of the devil, and brought under 
the blessed dominion of Christ. The conscience 
is quick to detect sin — even under some smooth 
disguises — and rises into protest and strong strag- 
glings against it. The affections go out towards 
Jesus; there is a sweet delight in his service, 
and an honest endeavor to keep his command- 
ments. A Christian's liberty is the possibility 
of serving God; the bond-slave of sin has not 
reached that, and never can until Christ strikes 
off his fetters. One of the best evidences of 
holiness we know of is the aim to obey Christ, 
and the sharp sense of contrition and self-abase- 
ment when he has been disobeyed. He who 
mourns not, mends not We don't believe that 



SEEKING AFTER HOLINESS. 121 

the godliest man or woman lives who does not 
often have need to smite on the breast, and cry 
out, " God be merciful to me a sinner !" 

For the holiness that fights against sin, bat- 
tles with temptation, keeps unspotted from the 
world, and lays self on the altar, there is a cry- 
ing need in our time. It is a sympathetic spirit, 
going about doing good, yet it has no sympathy 
with evil customs and the fashions of the world. 
It strives to keep clean. Against the downward 
pull of the world it braces itself and says, "If 
others do this, yet will not I." It dares to be 
singular and unfashionable. It keeps out of 
places where it would be smirched; and finds 
such enjoyment in its prayer-service, its Bible- 
study, its deeds of charity, and in the innocent 
joys of life, that it does not hanker after the 
playhouse and kindred sensualities. Walking in 
the Spirit, it does not stoop to the lusts of the 
flesh. 

This soul-health is not got by single occa- 
sional acts, such as going to a " Bible-reading, n 
or a meeting for promoting holiness, or by com- 

16 



122 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

ing to the communion-table. Whatever benefit 
may be got by these or other exercises, the case 
demands something deeper than externals. The 
soul must take in Christ, and let him abide 
there. The will must submit to him, and let 
him control, and the life must feel his invigor- 
ating power as my body feels the nourishing 
effect of wholesome bread and the restoring 
effects of honest sleep. The pulse of the heart 
must beat for Christ steadily — not with fever- 
ish rapidity to-day and feeble languor to-mor- 
row. 

Surely we may aspire after such health of 
heart and wholesome and happy living as are 
briefly outlined above. The more we possess it 
the less shall we boast of it. Other people will 
detect it, as we do the presence of the fire that 
is burning in the stove. The inward heat comes 
out and affects every particle of air in the room. 
We can no more conceive of genuine holiness 
that is unfelt by others than we can of a burning 
fire that emits no warmth. 



GLIMPSES OF HEAVEN. 1 23 



GLIMPSES OF HEAVEN, 



One of the many internal evidences that the 
Bible is of divine origin is furnished by its 
method of dealing with heaven. If it were a 
human composition, it would devote a large 
space to that existence in which immortal beings 
are to spend everlasting ages; it would dwell on 
numberless particulars in its description of the 
u better country." But God's Book devotes 
over one hundred average pages to the rules of 
life in this world — even though this life on earth 
is measured by two or three score of years. Its 
aim is to show us the way to heaven ; and when 
we get there it will be time enough to find out 
what manner of place it is, and what will be the 
precise employments of its occupants. A very 
few sentences only in God's Word are devoted to 
the description of the saints' everlasting home. 
The Bible says just enough to pique our curiosity 



124 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

and to stimulate speculation, but not enough to 
lift the sublime mystery which overhangs it like 
a cloud of glory. A few things seem clear to us. 
It is a place — a distinctly bounded one — or else 
such words as c i walls ' ' and ( c gates ' ' are a mere 
phantasy. The light of it proceeds from a cen- 
tral throne; for the Lamb who is in the midst 
of the throne is the light thereof. 

There is something beautifully suggestive in 
the many-sidedness of heaven, with gates of 
entrance from every point of the compass. This 
emphasizes the catholicity of God's " many man- 
sions, ' ' into which all the redeemed shall enter, 
from all parts of the globe, and from every de- 
nomination in Christ's flock. All shall come 
in through Christ, yet by many gateways. The 
variety of " fruits" on the trees of life points 
towards the idea of satisfying every conceivable 
taste and aspiration of God's vast household. 

Heaven is assuredly to be a home; its occu- 
pants one large, loving household. It will meet 
our deepest social longings; no one will complain 
of want of "good society." The venerable Em- 



GLIMPSES OF HEAVEN. 125 

mons is not the only profound thinker who has fed 
his hopes of "a good talk with the apostle Paul." 
Dr. Guthrie is not the only parent who has felt 
assured that his 4 ' wee Johnnie ' ' would meet 
him inside the gate. Many a pastor counts on 
finding his spiritual children there as a crown of 
rejoicing in that day. The recognition of friends 
in heaven cannot be a matter of doubt. Nor 
will any hateful spirit of caste mar the equalities 
of a home where all have a common Lord and 
and all are brethren. 

When Cyneas, the ambassador of Pyrrhus, 
returned from his visit to Rome in the days of 
her glory, he reported to his sovereign that he 
had seen a u commonwealth of kings." So will 
it be in heaven, where every heir of redeeming 
grace will be as a king and priest unto God, and 
divine adoption shall make every one a member 
of the Royal family. What a comfort that we 
need never to pull up our tent-poles in quest of a 
pleasanter residence. Heaven will have no 
"moving-day." When you and I, brother, 
have packed up at the tap of death's signal-bell, 



126 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

we set out on our last journey, and there will be 
a delightful permanence in those words "for ever 
with the Lord. ' \ The leagues to that home are 
few and short. Happy is that child of Jesus 
whose life-work is kept up so steadily to the line 
that he is ready to leave it at an instant's notice; 
happy is he who is ever listening for the invita- 
tion to hasten to his home. 

One of the best evidences of the changed and 
entirely sanctified condition of Christians in that 
new world of glory will be that God can trust us 
there with complete, unalloyed prosperity ! I 
never saw a Christian yet in this world who 
could be; even Paul himself needed a "thorn" 
to prick his natural pride and keep him humble. 
There is not one of us whose religion might not 
soon decay, like certain . fruits, if exposed to the 
blazing heat of a perpetual sunshine. Here we 
require constant chastisements, constant lettiugs- 
down, and frequent days of cloud and storm. 
God could not more effectually ruin us than by 
letting us have our own way. 

But in heaven we can bear to be perpetually 



GLIMPSES OF HEAVEN. 127 

prosperous, perpetually healthy, perpetually hap- 
py, and freed from even the need of self- watch- 
fulness ! The hardest recognition of heaven will 
be to know ourselves. We shall require no rods 
of discipline there, and there will be no house- 
room for crosses in the realms of perfect holiness. 
Can it be that you and I shall ever see a day that 
shall never know a pang, never witness a false 
step, never hear a sigh of shame or mortifica- 
tion, never see one dark hour, and never have a 
cloud float through its bright, unbroken azure of 
glory? Can all this be? Yes, this may all and 
will all be true of me, if I am Christ's faithful 
child; but oh ! what a changed creature must I be 
when I get on the other side of that gate of 
pearl ! Heaven will not be a greater surprise to 
us than we shall be to ourselves. 



128 WAYSIDE SPRINGS, 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLD-SHIPS, 



ThERE are many passages in the Word of 
God that most readers pass by, as they would 
pass unlighted transparencies in the street at 
night. If somebody sets a lamp or kindles a 
gas-jet behind the transparency, its picture or 
inscription becomes luminous, attracting all eyes 
to it. One purpose of good preaching is to set 
lamps behind neglected passages. 

Among the overlooked episodes in Old Tes- 
tament history which are full of suggestive wis- 
dom is one in the life of that good and great 
Judsean monarch, Jehoshaphat. His reign exalted 
the southern kingdom to a high prosperity. He 
wrought a good educational work among his 
people, and established a commission for ex- 
pounding the Mosaic laws. He did many other 
noble things; but upon the lustre of his charac- 
ter and reign fell one great and grievous shad- 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLD-SHIPS. 1 29 

ow. It was the sin of alliance with wicked men. 
Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundance, 
and his heart was lifted up in the ways of the 
Lord; yet he " joined affinity with Ahab, n the 
profligate tyrant of the northern kingdom. He 
gave his son in marriage to Ahab's daughter, 
and made a military alliance with Ahab, which 
ended in the battle of Ramoth-Gilead, in which 
the northern king played a treacherous part and 
lost his life. Not satisfied with these entangling 
alliances, which were both prompted by selfish 
policies, he entered into a commercial partner- 
ship with Ahab's successor, the godless Ahaziah. 
Jehu, a prophet of Jehovah, had the courage to 
administer the sharp rebuke, "Shouldst thou 
help the ungodly, and love them that hate the 
Lord? Therefore is wrath upon thee from be- 
fore the Lord. ' ' 

The narrative of Jehosliaphat' s venture with 
wicked Ahaziah reads very much like some of 
the l ( big bonanza ' ' schemes of these days in 
Colorado and Nevada. The two monarchs join 
hands in a gold-hunting expedition. The sacred 

17 



130 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

chronicler tells 11s that they built ships in part- 
nership, on the Gulf of Akabah, for the pur- 
pose of seeking gold in Ophir. But the ill-starred 
enterprise was blasted by the Lord ; the ( ( ships 
went not; for they were wrecked at E^ion- 
geber. n This was no accidental catastrophe; 
for the fearless Elie^er told Jehoshaphat plainly, 
" Because thou hast joined thyself with Ahaziah 
the Lord hath broken (or wrecked) thy works. ' ' 
Upon that illuminated transparency which pic- 
tures the wreck of the gold-ships there blazes 
out this truth : partnership with sin is a fatal mis- 
take. 

We could fill the pages of this book with 
illustrations of this truth drawn from our own 
observation. Many a sorrowing father can tell 
the story of what befell his beloved* boy. The 
youth, fascinated with a set of gay fellows, who 
were " posted' * in all the amusements of the 
town, fell into their snares, and spent his even- 
ings with them in their favorite haunts. His 
night-key admits him to the door of home in the 
" small hours," while his foolish parents are on 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLD-SHIPS. 131 

their pillows. It is the old, old story, short but 
crushing. Like Eli, the father " restrains not" 
the son when he is " making himself vile," and 
like EH, he pays the bitter penalty. When the 
ruin has been wrought by a round of wine-sup- 
pers, theatres, and brothels, the parents get their 
eyes open to see that evil company has wrecked 
their gold-ship. The streets of all our cities, 
like the rocks of Ezion-geber, are strewed with 
the ruins of high hopes that went to pieces in 
wicked associations. When parents intrust a 
night-key to a son who has no self-restraint or 
Bible-conscience, they give him a free pass on 
the road to perdition. 

There is another phase of domestic life in 
which this Old Testament episode finds its fre- 
quent parallels. We recall now an only daughter 
of rare beauty and accomplishments. Her peril- 
ous charms attracted a suitor who was coarse and 
sensual; but he was heir to an expected fortune. 
His anticipated wealth bribed the foolish parents 
and overcame the daughter's scruples. She 
consented, contrary to her own judgment, to 



132 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

marry him. Within a few years he was dis- 
graced, and she was divorced. God's law is, 
''Whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye also reap." 
It was that law, more irresistible than the winds 
of heaven, that wrecked the poor girl's gold-ship 
in broken hopes and a broken heart. Of all the 
alliances with sin from mercenary motives, the 
most certainly fatal are those which are made 
under the sacred name of wedlock. 

The political history of our country is sadly 
eloquent with examples of civilians and states- 
men who have wrecked their careers by alliances 
with wrong men, wrong policies, or wrong in- 
stitutions. Every man, on his entrance upon 
public life, has his "mount of temptation. " If 
he courageously says, u Get thee behind me, Sa- 
tan !" his subsequent path to honor and true 
success is assured. If he yields, he is lost. The 
sorceress, during more than one generation, was 
slavery. By her much fair speech and promises 
of promotion she caused many an ambitious 
statesman to yield to her, and u straightway he 
went after her as an ox goeth to the slaughter. ' ' 



THE WRECK OF THE GOU>SHIPS. I33 

This truth of perilous partnerships is full of 
warnings to business men. Especially is it ad- 
monitory to young men who are anxious to reach 
wealth by short cuts and are not scrupulous as 
to the methods. The market is crowded with 
sharp schemers, the papers abound with glow- 
ing announcements of commercial ventures and 
" gilt-edged" enterprises. The number of cred- 
ulous Jehoshaphats who are enticed into gold 
expeditions to Opliir, with Ahaziahs in the part- 
nership, is almost past belief. The wrecks are 
well nigh as numerous. It is not only from wild 
schemes of speculation that danger arises. Many 
a merchant, banker, manufacturer, or tradesman 
has been induced by friends or partners to ally 
himself with methods and practices which his 
own conscience, in his better moments, did not 
approve; but he hushed conscience with the 
promise of big profits, or with the current sophis- 
try, u Oh! everybody does such things !" The 
men who, like William E. Dodge, refuse to 
" break God's laws for a dividend " are not to be 
found in regiments. Commerce and trade, like 



134 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

politics, contain a thousand repetitions of that 
old Scripture line, u Because thou hast joined 
thyself with Ahaziah, the Lord hath wrecked 
thy works. ' ' 

u Be ye not partakers of other men's sins" is 
a divine admonition that has not lost its solemn 
portent. Though hand join in hand, wrong- 
doing will not go unpunished; if not punished 
in this world, then surely it will be in the next. 
J ust as certainly as that the wages of sin is death, 
so certain is it that eternity will reveal the fear- 
ful wreck of innumerable gold-ships — the "loss 
total, and no insurance." 



THE HONKY GF THE WORD. 1 35 



THE HONEY OF THE WORD. 



" SKK, how mine eyes have been enlight- 
ened, because I tasted a little of this honey." 
So spake Jonathan, the true-hearted son of a 
false-hearted father. Saul had pronounced a 
curse upon any of his army who should taste of 
food during their pursuit of the enemy. But 
when the troops reached a forest where the bees 
had laid up their abundant stores, several honey- 
combs were found lying upon the earth. The 
prince-royal, not having heard of his father's 
harsh edict, put forth the rod which was in his 
hand, and dipped it in a honeycomb and put it 
to his mouth; and his eyes were enlightened. Re- 
freshment came to his hungry frame, and en- 
lightenment to his eyes which were dim with 
faintness and fatigue. 

What a beautiful parable this incident is to 
set forth one of the richest blessings of the Word 



136 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

of Life! The Psalmist extolled it as "sweeter 
than honey ;" but he also exclaimed, "The en- 
trance of Thy Word giveth light ; yea, under- 
standing to the simple." It is not the mere 
reading of the Word carelessly, or the hearing of 
it listlessly, but its entrance into the soul, which 
produces this inward illumination. Thousands 
of people listen to God's truths every Sabbath 
without any effect on the heart or the life. They 
do not take the truth into their souls, as Jona- 
than took the honey into his system. But when 
the Word is partaken of, and the Spirit accom- 
panies it, there is a revelation made to the heart 
like that which the poor blind boy had after the 
operation of a skilful oculist. His mother led 
him out of doors, and taking off the bandage, 
gave him his first view of sunshine and flowers. 
"O mother!" he cried, "why did you not tell 
me it was so beautiful?" The tears started as 
she replied, "I tried to tell you, my dear, but 
you could not understand me." So the spiritual 
sight must be opened, in order that the spiritual 
glories may be discerned. Many a poor sinner has 



THE HONEY OF THE WORD. 137 

never found out what a glorious gospel our gospel 
is until he has swallowed the honey for himself. 

Even as a mental discipline there is no book 
like God's Book. No other study so strength- 
ens the understanding, clarifies the perceptions, 
and enlarges the views, so purifies the taste, in- 
vigorates the judgment, and educates the whole 
man. The humblest day-laborer who saturates 
his mind with this school-book from heaven be- 
comes a superior man to his comrades — not 
merely a purer man, but a clearer-headed man. 
It was this honey from heaven which gave to the 
Puritans much of their sagacity, as well as all of 
their stubborn loyalty to the right. The secret 
of the superiority of the Scottish peasantry is 
found in that "big ha' Bible" which is the daily 
study at every cottage ingleside. What an argu- 
ment this is for keeping God's own school-book 
for his children in every school of our land, high 
or humble. As the honey strewed the forest for 
Israel's common soldiers to partake of, so the 
Lord has sent down his Word for the masses. 

It is more than light, for it is an enlightener. 

18 



I38 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

Not only does it reveal the grandest and most el- 
evating truths in the universe, but it improves 
the actual vision. It makes the blind to see, and 
the strong-sighted stronger. Who of us that has 
been terribly perplexed about questions of right 
and wrong, and been sorely puzzled as to our 
duty, has not caught a new view and a true view 
as soon as he dipped his rod into the honeycomb 
of God's Word? A single text once settled for 
me a vexed question of duty. Cowper found in 
the twenty-fifth verse of the third chapter of Ro- 
mans the honey which brought light to his soul 
when overclouded with despair. John Wesley 
thrust his rod into this verse: "The law of the 
spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free 
from the law of sin and death. ' ' Even Paul had 
not learned his own sin until the commandment 
against covetousness opened his eyes. The fifty- 
third chapter of Isaiah so enlightened the eye of 
the Ethiopian treasurer that he discovered Jesus 
the Lamb of God ! 

Ah, there is many a reader of these pages who 
can testify how the precious honey from heaven 



THE HONEY OF THE WORD. 1 39 

brought light and joy to his eyes when dimmed 
with grief. The exceeding great and precious 
promises were not only sweet, they were illu- 
minating. They lighted up the valley of the 
shadow of death. They showed how crosses can 
be turned into crowns, and how losses can bright- 
en into glorious gains. When in a sick-room I 
always dip my rod into the honeycomb of the 
fourteenth chapter of John. It brings Jesus there. 
One of my bravest Sunday-school teachers so fed 
on this honey that on her dying-bed she said, 
"My path through the valley is long, but His 
bright all the way. ' ' 

Nothing opens the sinner's eyes to see himself 
and to see the Saviour of sinners like the simple 
Word. The Bible is the book to reveal iniquity 
in the secret parts. If the young man will dip 
his rod into this warning, "Look not 011 the wine 
when it is red," he may discover that there is a 
nest of adders in the glass ! If the scoffer can be 
induced to taste some of that honey which Christ 
gave to Nicodemus, he may find heaven and hell 
to be tremendous realities ! 



140 WAYSIDK SPRINGS. 

Brethren of the ministry, I do not know how 
you all may feel; but I am growing confident 
that our chief business is not only to eat hugely 
of this honey ourselves, but to tell our people 
where to dip their rods. We have got no new 
gospel for them — no " advanced thought 55 be- 
yond Moses, John, and Paul, The honey lies 
thick on the ground. May the divine Spirit help 
us to point it out to blinded dying men ! 



CAN WE. FEEL SURE? 141 



CAN WE FEEIv SURE? 



IT was said of a certain magnificent speech 
of Daniel Webster that " every word weighed a 
pound. " But there is a line in the thirty-fifth 
Psalm — mostly made up of monosyllables — in 
which every word weighs a ton. David uttered 
it in a season of despondency, when he cried 
out, ( ( Say unto my soul, I a7n thy salvation, ' ' 
The old monarch was in trouble. His own 
throne was assailed, and so he went to the Ever- 
lasting Throne. His own heart was assailed by 
doubts, and so he sought for a fresh and full 
assurance of salvation. Whatever David's own 
experiences may have been, he furnished a golden 
prayer for universal use in these pregnant, pithy 
words: "Say unto my soul, I am thy salva- 
tion." 

The salvation which all of us most need is a 
deliverance from the guilt and dominion of sin— 



142 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

to be liberated from the bondage of that great 
slave-holder the devil. Beset with temptations, 
we need succor when we are tempted. The only 
salvation ' ' under heaven given among men ' ' is 
by the atoning blood of Jesus and the regenera- 
ting power of the Holy Spirit. This is a full 
salvation, a complete salvation; it is God's mas- 
terpiece of mercy to us guilty, depraved, and 
dying sinners. Can this salvation be made sure 
to a man, and can he be sure that he possesses it? 
We answer unhesitatingly, Yes. David did 
not ask for impossibilities when he asked God to 
assure him of his salvation. Paul knew what 
he was about when he said, ( c Know ye not your 
own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, 
except ye be reprobates?" There is no perhaps 
about the salvation of a true follower of Christ 
any more than there is about the rising of to- 
morrow's sun. It does not depend upon my say, 
or your say, or any man's say. Only God can 
give the decisive and infallible assurance to us 
that we are safe for this world and for eternity. 
c Let it be carefully noted that the prayer is 



CAN WE FEEL SURE? 143 

that God would say unto the soul, l ' I am thy 
salvation." There is no audible voice addressed 
to the ear; in fact, multitudes hear the offer of 
salvation every Sabbath by the ear, and yet their 
hearts are as deaf as adders. What God says can 
only be heard by the heart. We would define 
faith to be heart-hearing. And unto the docile, 
believing soul God says wonderful things, and 
things to make the soul leap for joy. u This is 
a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, 
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save 
sinners.-' I open the ivory chamber of John's 
Gospel, and read these words: " Verily, verily, I 
say unto you, he that heareth my word and 
believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting 
life and shall not come into condemnation." 
Again, Jesus says in the same Gospel, "This is 
the will of him that sent me, that every one which 
seeth the Son and believeth on him may have 
everlasting life." "My sheep hear my voice, 
and I know them and they follow me. And I 
give unto them eternal life, and they shall never 
perish; neither shall any man pluck them out 



144 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

of my hand. ' ' He does not affirm that we may 
never, in a fit of waywardness and pride, throw 
ourselves out of that almighty and loving hand. 
But he does declare that while we stay there we 
are safe. And, being safe, we have a right to 
know it, and to feel all the serenity and satisfac- 
tion which this ownership by the Lord Jesus 
can inspire. 

Faith is the souPs trust in Jesus as our salva- 
tion. It ought to bring a delightful sense of 
security. But it does not always do so, because 
it is too weak and doubting to produce assurance. 
Faith is the milk, and assurance is the cream 
which rises on it. The richer the milk the 
more abundant will be the cream. Assurance is 
not essential to salvation, as faith is; for God 
will let a great many people into heaven who 
had a very feeble faith here on earth. Faith is 
life, though it be sometimes a very weak, anxious, 
burdened, and uncomfortable life. Assurance 
marks a higher degree of health, vigor, joy, and 
power to overcome. Peter possessed some faith 
when he screamed to his Master from the 



CAN WE FEEL SURE? 145 

waves, "Lord, save me!" He had reached a 
much higher attainment by the Spirit when he 
exclaimed in the market-place of Jerusalem, 
1 ' This is the stone which was set at naught of 
you builders, which is become the head of the 
corner. " Saul of Tarsus had an infant faith 
born in his soul when he was groping about in 
the house of Ananias at Damascus. The infant 
had grown into a giant when Paul had reached 
up to the eighth chapter to the Romans, and could 
shout, l i I know whom I have believed, and am 
persuaded that He is able to keep that which I 
have committed to Him." Jesus had really 
said to Paul, "I am thy salvation." 

Paul had the witness of the Spirit that he 
was Christ's. There was an inward conviction 
and an outward life, and the two corresponded 
with each other. They both corresponded also 
to the Spirit's description of true piety in the 
Bible. When a tree produces the leaves of a 
pear and the fruit of the pear, we are sure that 
it is a pear-tree. When a man feels the love 
of Jesus in his soul and keeps the commandments 

19 



I46 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

of Jesus in his life, he has the witness of the 
Holy Spirit that he is in Christ. Being in 
Christ, he is safe. There is no condemnation to 
such a man. The Lord has said unto such a 
consistent believer, ( ' I am thy salvation. ' ' But 
when an oily-tongued dissembler, who cheats 
his creditors or lives a life of secret uncleanness, 
rises in a prayer-meeting and prates glibly about 
his holiness or his sanctified attainments, he sim- 
ply unmasks his own hypocrisy. 

We have just said that assurance is not a 
positive essential of faith; but yet it is the privi- 
lege and the duty of a genuine Christian to 
possess the assurance of Christ's love and protec- 
tion. Old Latimer used to say that when he 
had this steadfast trust in his Master he could 
face a lion ; when he lost it, he was ready to run 
into a mouse-hole. Why should the soul to 
whom Jesus has said, "I am thy salvation," be 
continually worrying itself sick with doubts 
and fears? If I have put my everlasting all in 
Christ's hands, he is responsible for the trust- 
as long as I leave it with him. 



CAN WE FEEL SURE? 147 

Two men go out to Colorado and purchase 
tracts of mining-land. One of them spends half 
his time worrying about his deed, and in run- 
ning to the clerk's office to see whether his title 
is good. While he is tormenting himself in this 
idiotic way, the other man has worked his gold- 
mine so industriously that he has sent fifty loads 
of solid ore to the crushing-mill. Brethren, if 
we have taken Christ's word, and committed 
our souls to his keeping and our lives to his 
disposal, let us not worry about our title-deeds to 
heaven. Let us understand the power of the two 
pronouns "my" and "thy." It is my soul to 
which the Almighty Jesus says, "I am thy sal- 
vation." Go about your life-work, brother, and 
do it honestly and thoroughly. God is responsi- 
ble for the results and the reward. If I check 
my baggage to Chicago, it is not mine until I 
get there. It belongs to the baggage-master. 
Surely, I ought to have as strong a faith that 
my immortal soul is safe in Christ's keeping as 
I have that my trunk is safe in the charge of a 
railway officer. 



148 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

Assurance of salvation by the Son of God is 
no modern discovery. It is not a new invention 
4 ' patented ' } by any school of Bible students. It 
is as old as the cross of Calvary. Paul built his 
Epistle to the Romans on this rock. The Psalm- 
ist of Israel was seeking after it, in his troubles, 
when he cried out to the living God, "Say 
unto my soul, I am thy salvation !" 



ASLEEP IN JESUS. 149 



ASLEEP IN JESUS- 



No scriptural description of death is so sug- 
gestive and so consoling as that which is con- 
veyed by the familiar word sleep. It recurs often. 
Stephen the martyr breathes his sublime prayer, 
and then u he fell asleep." Our Lord said to 
his disciples, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but 
I go that I may awake him out of sleep. n Paul, 
in that transcendently sublime chapter on the 
resurrection, treats death as but the transient 
slumber of the body, to be followed by the glori- 
ous awakening at the sound of the last trumpet. 
And then he crowns it with that voice of the 
divine Spirit, that marvellous utterance which 
has been said and sobbed and sung in so many 
a house of bereavement: "I would not have you 
to be ignorant concerning them which are asleep; 
for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, 
even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God 



150 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

bring with him." No three words are inscribed 
on more tombs or on more hearts than these: 
c ' Asleep in Jesus. ' ' 

These declarations of God's Word describe 
death as simply the temporary suspension of bodi- 
ly activities. Not a hint is given of a total end, 
an extinction, or an annihilation. The material 
body falls asleep, the immortal spirit being mean- 
while in full activity; and the time is predicted 
when the body, called up from the tomb, shall 
reunite with the deathless spirit, and the man 
shall live on through eternity. What we call 
dying is only a momentary process. It is a 
flitting of the immortal tenant from the frail tent 
or tabernacle, which is so often racked with pain 
and waxes old into decay. Paul calls it a depar- 
ture: u To depart and be with Christ. " The 
spiritual tenant shuts up the windows of the 
earthly house ere he departs; he muffles the 
knocker at the ear, so that no sound can enter; 
he extinguishes the fire that glows about the 
heart, stops the warm currents that flow through 
the veins, and leaves the deserted house cold, 



ASLEEP IN JESUS. 151 

silent, and motionless. We, the survivors, bend 
over the deserted heart-house; but there is neith- 
er voice nor hearing. We kiss the brow, and 
it is marble. The beloved sleeper is sleeping a 
sleep that thunders or earthquake cannot dis- 
turb. But what is there in this slumber of the 
body that suggests any fear that the ethereal 
essence of the spirit has become extinct or even 
suspended its activities ? When the mother lays 
her darling in its crib, she knows that sleep sim- 
ply means rest, refreshment, and to-morrow morn- 
ing's brighter eye, nimbler foot, and the carol of 
a lark in her nursery. When you or I drop off 
into the repose of the night, we understand that 
the avenues of the five bodily senses are closed 
for a few hours; but the mind is, meanwhile, as 
busy as when we wake. 

Death means just this: no more and no less. 
As Maclaren has vigorously said, " Strip the man 
of the disturbances that come from a fevered 
body, and he will have a calmer soul. Strip 
him of the hindrances which come from a body 
that is like an ojDaque tower around his spirit, 



152 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

with only a narrow crevice here and a narrow 
door there — five poor senses with which he is 
connected with the outer universe — and, surely, 
the spirit will have wider avenues out to God. 
It will have larger powers of reception, because 
it has become rid of the closer confinements of 
the fleshly tabernacle. They who die in Jesus 
live a larger, fuller, nobler life, by the very 
cessation of care, change, strife, and struggle. 
Above all, they live a fuller, grander life, be- 
cause they ( sleep in yesus ' and are gathered into 
his embrace, and wake with him, clothed with 
white robes, awaiting the adoption, to wit, the 
redemption of the body." In God's good time, 
the slumbering body shall be resuscitated and 
shall be fashioned like to Christ's glorious body — 
i. e. , it shall be transformed into a condition 
which shall meet the wants of a beatific soul in 
its celestial dwelling-place. Verily, with this 
transcendent blaze of revelation pouring into the 
believer's death-chamber and his tomb, we ought 
not to sorrow as they that have no hope. 

In this view of death (which is God's own 



ASLEEP IN JESUS. 153 

view) how vivid becomes the apostle's exclama- 
tion, "I am confident and willing rather to 
be absent from the body and to be present with 
the Lord." " Who is it that is to be absent? I, 
Paul — the living Paul — I can be entirely quit from 
that poor tabernacle of flesh and yet live ! My 
body is no more Paul than the corn-ship was when 
it went to pieces on the shore of Melita and I 
escaped safe to land. n Paul was entirely willing 
that the old scarred and weary body might be 
put to sleep, so that he might go home and be 
present with his Lord. Then mortality would 
be swallowed up of life. Go to sleep, poor, old, 
hard- worked body, the apostle seems to say, and 
Jesus will wake thee up in good time, and thou 
slialt be made like to the body of his glory, 
according to the working whereby he subdues 
all things unto himself. 

Let us not be charged with pushing this 
Scripture simile too far when we hint that it 
illustrates the different feelings with which dif- 
ferent persons regard the act of dying. When 

we are sleepy, we covet the pillow and the couch. 

20 



154 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

When work is to be done, when the duties of 
the day are pressing on us, then we are not only 
broad awake, but the more awake the better. 
Sleep then is repulsive. Even so do we see aged 
servants of God, who have finished up their life- 
work, and many a suffering invalid racked with 
incurable pains, who honestly long to die. They 
are sleepy for the rest of the grave and the home 
beyond it. Yet desire for death is not natural 
to the young, the vigorous, or especially to the 
servants of God who are most intent upon their 
high calling. These recoil from death, however 
saintly or spiritual they may be, or however 
strong be their convictions that heaven is infi- 
nitely better than this world. It is not merely 
the natural shrinking from death (which the man 
Christ Jesus felt in common with us), but the 
supreme idea of serving their God to the utmost 
possible limit. For Christ here^ with Christ 
yonder, is the highest instinct of the Christian 
heart. The noble missionary, Judson, phrased 
it happily when he said, ( ( I am not tired of my 
workj neither am I tired of the world; yetj when 



ASLEEP IN JESUS. 155 

Christ calls me home, I shall go with the glad- 
ness of a boy bounding away from school. ' ' He 
wanted to toil for souls until he grew sleepy, and 
then he wanted to lay his body down to rest and 
to escape into glory. 

A" dying-bed is only the spot where the mate- 
rial frame falls asleep. Then we take up the 
slumbering form and gently bear it to its narrow 
bed in mother earth. Our very word u ceme- 
tery n describes this thought. It is derived from 
the Greek word Koifi^piov (koimeterion), which sig- 
nifies a sleeping-place. Greenwood is really a 
vast dormitory in which tens of thousands are 
laid to their last repose — some in their gorgeous 
environments of rosewood and marble, and others 
in the poor little trundle-beds of the paupers' 
plot. It is a mingled and promiscuous sleeping- 
place; but the Master "knoweth them that are 
his." They who sleep in him shall awake to 
be for ever with their Lord. 

On this tremendous question of the resurrec- 
tion of our loved ones and our reunion with them, 
our yearning hearts are satisfied with nothing 



156 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

less than certainty. Poetic fancies are gossamer: 
analogies from the sprouting of seeds and bulbs, 
probabilities, intuitions, and all philosophi^ings 
are too shadowy to rear a solid faith on. We 
demand absolute certainty, and there are just 
two truths that can give it. The first one is the 
actual fact of Christ's own resurrection from the 
death-slumber; the second is his omnipotent as- 
surance that all they who sleep in him shall be 
raised up and be where he is for evermore. 
Those early Christians were wise in their gene- 
ration when they carved on the tomb of the mar- 
tyrs u In yesu Christo obdormivity — In Jesus 
Christ he fell asleep. 

" Oh ! precious tale of triumph this ! 
And martyr-blood shed to achieve it, 
Of suffering past — of present bliss. 
' In Jesu Christo obdormiviV 

" Of cherished dead be mine the trust, 
Thrice-blessed solace to believe it, 
That I can utter o'er their dust, 
' In Jesu Christo obdormivit' 



THE SEVEN U BI,ESSEDS." 157 



THE SEVEN "BLESSEDS." 



ThERE are seven benedictions in the book of 
Revelation which will repay every Christian's 
closest study The first occurs in the opening 
lines of John's Apocalypse: " Blessed is he that 
readeth, and they that hear the words of this 
prophecy, and keep those things which are writ- 
ten therein." Just at the close of the Apoc- 
alypse is another similar passage: " Blessed is 
he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of 
this book. ' ' These two verses are like the golden 
clasps, one on each lid, that hold together a dear 
old family Bible. The divine commendation is 
here pronounced on the Bible-reader and the 
Bible-keeper. God's Word always honors itself. 
No man is fit to preach it who ever whiffles over 
the truthfulness and authority of its every page. 

The next benediction is pronounced upon 
the gospel-guests: " Blessed are they who are 
called unto the marriage-supper of the I,amb." 



158 WAYSIDE SPRINGS. 

This is what our sound old fathers style "effec- 
tual calling. " They who are drawn by the 
attraction of the cross, and yield to that drawing, 
are renewed by the Holy Spirit. Theirs is a 
place at the celestial banquet. Upon them is 
put the clean linen and white which is the right 
eousness of Christ. How careful should every 
disciple be to walk unspotted from the world, 
for every stain looks ugly upon a white ground. 
Why should we wait until our arrival in heaven 
to look clean ! 

There is a hint as to the method of keeping 
thus, clearly given in the third benediction: 
" Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his 
garments, lest he walk naked and they see his 
shame. ' ' No believer can preserve the purity of 
his character without prayerful vigilance. 
"Watch!" And one reason for this watchful- 
ness is that Christ's coming is to be as unan- 
nounced as the midnight visit of a burglar. The 
thief never sends us word that he is coming 
to steal our clothes. It will be a terrible thing 
to lose our wedding-garment. Old Dr. Alexan- 



the seven "bussseds." 159 

der used to say with solemn tenderness, "I wont 
answer for any Christian while in an awful state 
of backsliding. ' ' 

Upon the gospel-doers rests the sweet ap- 
proval of the fourth benediction. It is the bless- 
ing upon those u that do His commandments." 
The evidence and the joy of discipleship both lie 
in obedience to Christ. This is what the world 
has a right to demand from us — a religion of 
fruits. Away with the wretched delusion that 
"good works" have no place in the Christian's 
salvation ! Faith without works is dead. 

He, and he only, who is born of Christ will 
be able to pass this searching ordeal. Christ's 
approval at the last great day will be, " Ye did 
it unto me. ' ' 

The next blessing in John's wonderful Reve- 
lation is that angelic voice that floats over the 
resting-place of the pious dead. l ' Blessed are 
the dead which die in the Lord." To them 
the perils of the voyage are over. They have 
cast anchor in the haven. They are safe. Peter 
shall never deny again, and Paul will no more 



160 wayside: springs. 

be obliged to battle with an unruly "body." 
Calvin and Wesley can clasp hands over the 
glorious fact that neither one of them shall ever 
fall from grace. That is a joyful anthem which 
sings itself so sweetly over a. believer's dust, 
"Blessed is he, for he died in the Lord." 

About the last one of the benedictions in this 
sublime book there has been no little controver- 
sy: "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the 
first resurrection." Our Miilenarian brethren 
make much of this passage; but none of their 
ingenious speculations seem to clarify the mys- 
tery that hangs over that word ' ( first. " It is 
enough for me that if I fall to sleep in Jesus, I 
shall awake with him. Little does the date 
trouble me, or the question of precedence. There 
is not an unmarked grave in all Christ's house- 
hold of the slumberers. He will call them up 
at the last day. "Them which sleep in Jesus 
will God bring together with him." And when 
we all reach that celestial home, we shall see 
these seven "blesseds" shining like the seven 
candlesticks before the throne* 



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